All or Nothing
by Lamby
Summary: A terrorist network releases a virus in order to blackmail the US government, but the X-Men get caught in the crossfire. Will this be the end for mutants everywhere? AU to X3.
1. 01

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you again to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars. Hope you enjoy this one, let me know what you think? Timeline wise, its set immediately after 'Overload', so six-ish years after X2  
  
Scene 01  
  
Several months previously.........  
  
The sterile lab with its clinical lighting and stainless steel coolness was busy with efficient scientists in full bio-protection suits and protected air supplies. They moved with military efficiency as he watched from behind the security of the observation window. A shadowy figure, he had his arms crossed across his chest as he majestically ignored the triumphant chatter behind him from his minions. Yes, this was a big day for all of them. But they had not succeeded this far without cost, nor had they yet been assured of success. Everything rested on the next few moments.  
  
The girl was terrified. A street kid with messy hair and a muddy face, her lavender eyes almost obscured by the extreme widening of her pupils. The scientists around her treated her with the same indifference they would have a lab rat. Strapped to a table, too scared to struggle, she watched as one filled a syringe from a bottle labelled simply 'X'. Her stomach lurched and she choked on a child's sob, squirming against her bonds as the scientist approached, tapping the syringe with his fingers to eradicate air bubbles.  
  
Another scientist grasped her arm hard above the elbow, raising a clear vein for the needle to be inserted. They were oblivious to her screams. The needle pierced the vein, the plunger depressed. She had no idea what they were injecting her with as she turned her face away, looking pleading through the observation window at the unresponsive man stood in the shadows.  
  
It took two days for the first mutant test subject to die. An unpleasant death, caused by excess of fluid in the lungs, from boils that ruptured all over the skin and in the body cavity of the infected person. The virus was more efficient than he could have dreamed of. Now all that remained was to make sure that the virus would not affect normal humans in any way, and he would have his tool to rid the world of the mutant menace...  
  
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Day 01, Monday.........  
  
"You're a fool Wolverine!" A male voice shouted from across the room. Logan squirmed frantically, trying to get his claws around far enough to slice through the chains that bound his wrists. It wasn't easy, and it was extremely painful. The chains were tight, and he had to lift his feet clean from the floor, making his muscles scream, but still he could not twist well enough to free himself. His captor laughed. "And now we're going to make an example of you, so your dear Professor will know not to mess with us again!"  
  
Logan quit squirming and looked about him. That threat sounded ominous, and sure enough a youth was approaching with an evil glint in his eye. They were in a warehouse, Wolverine and the gang of mutants he'd successfully infiltrated for Xavier over the past few weeks. Xavier wanted them disbanded, and Logan hadn't been far off that goal, playing one member of another as they fought their war for mutant superiority in their home city. But then somebody had figured out what he was doing...  
  
The kid's hands were white hot like pokers. That was his name, Poker, and it pretty much described what he started doing to Wolverine, jamming his fingers all over Wolverine's bare chest and back, making the X-Man holler with pain. Fighting back, Logan lifted himself up by the chains again, swung his feet around and caught Poker in the chest. The kid fell backwards, but the gang had been ready for that. Only Poker's eagerness to damage the man who he'd looked up to for the last few weeks, the man who'd betrayed them, had convinced them to let him even get close.  
  
April didn't need to get close. She was a clumsy telepath of the most twisted kind. Hands to her temple she put Logan's mind in a vice, making him scream out again. Air gasped in and out of him. His claws retracted unwillingly and his head slumped.  
  
Mace had iron fists. Wolverine could feel them pummelling his body but could do nothing after April's attack to stop it. He could only trust his super-healing ability to keep him safe. Venom spat at him, the tiny blonde woman's saliva dissolving Wolverine's flesh like purest acid. He writhed at the sensation, wondered in some distant place how much more of this punishment he could take? But then a sudden whirring overhead made all the gang look up as if they could see through the warehouse's roof.  
  
"The X-Men! We gotta get out of here!"  
  
"Finish him!" The gang's leader told Mace coldly, already leaving. Mace nodded, but the sound of his teammates' imminent arrival had given Logan all the focus he needed. Reaching up he grabbed the chains in his hands, pelted Mace the same as he had Poker. Outside there were yells as the gang ran into sudden resistance. A blast of red laser energy taking out the wall of the building could only Cyclops. Mace ran. Then came a brief throbbing noise, a streak of light and the chain above Logan's head exploded, sending him crashing to his knees on the floor.  
  
It was only then the damage done to Wolverine became clear, as he could not keep himself knelt upright. Hands still tied together and behind his back, he fell forwards flat on his face. His vision blurred, he tasted blood, and then he passed out.  
  
"Nice work Gambit." Cyclops was sarcastic. "Now we're gonna have to carry him out of here."  
  
"Hey, I t'ought he supposed to be a tough guy." Gambit shrugged, entering the warehouse behind Scott, with Ilehana Xavier and the pretty redhead known as Blaze. Ilehana, a medical doctor, ran practiced hands and eyes over Logan's fallen body, as Blaze put a hot finger to the chains that bound her friend's wrists and freed him.  
  
"He'll heal." Was Ilehana's verdict, little as it had taken for her to arrive at it, she was still relieved. "But he's still in a lot of pain."  
  
"Chere, the man bin a pain since the get go." Gambit quipped, shuffling cards casually in his hands.  
  
"That's not funny Gambit." Scott retorted, but Gambit spotted the amusement in Blaze's dancing brown eyes and winked at her whilst Ilehana carried on speaking.  
  
"Sorry to have to labour you with this, Scott, but I'm putting Logan further under telepathically until I can get him to the infirmary." The blonde animorphing telepathic daughter of Charles Xavier frowned briefly, then visibly relaxed as Wolverine slipped into a more easy stillness. "Everybody else okay?" Vixen asked as Scott obediently lugged Logan to his feet to carry him back to the X-Jet.  
  
"Burnt my stitches out again." Blaze admitted, her English accent ashamed as she tugged her uniform gloves off to reveal bleeding hands and wrists. She wouldn't meet Gambit's worried eyes as he placed a hand between his best friend's shoulder blades. The injuries, though accidental, were self- inflicted. Blaze was struggling on boldly, trying to hide how close she'd come to losing all sanity completely through carrying on with her normal duties as schoolteacher and X-Man. But she didn't fool Gambit or Ilehana, both could sense her fear. And neither was she helping her own recovery, barely going five minutes without tearing the cuts on her forearm and hands open again.  
  
"Don't worry." Ilehana offered gently. "I've a med kit on the jet. Wont be much use on Logan, but if Scott can keep the jet steady, I'll have you patched up again before we even get back to the mansion." 


	2. 02

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars. Senator Hawley, Sam Hawley and Matthew Cooper were introduced in Darkest Hearts before a longer outing in Shockwaves, just in case you were wondering.  
  
Scene 02  
  
"I was angry. Drunk, upset, and very, very angry. I hated her."  
  
The woman speaking was in her mid to late twenties, her long grey-black hair glossy and loose in a sleek waterfall like molten metal down to her shoulders. Her eyes were a subdued steely grey, her skin bronzed, form long and lean. She sat opposite a woman in a suit and carrying a clipboard, ticking off boxes as though they were important. Eloise sighed slightly, shifting in the uncomfortable plastic chair and waiting for the woman to ask her next question.  
  
"And what about now?" The woman's accent was South African. Eloise had been here so long she'd almost forgotten how any other accent could sound. "How do you feel after eight years with us?"  
  
"I don't..." Eloise began, frowning. "I don't feel anything. I know it was stupid, what I did. And I am sorry." She looked up at the woman in the suit, sat attentively and nodding professionally to everything Eloise said. "I've no desire to go and get my revenge if that's what you mean? I was young, and like I said, stupid." She shrugged nervously, too much depended on this meeting, this assessment. The plastic handcuffs chafed her wrists in the heat. The pencil the woman scratched her plastic clipboard with grated on the paper. Oh how she longed to get near something, anything, metallic again! Eight years of not feeling whole, a mutant kept away from that which she, Mercury, controlled. It was a wonder she was still sane.  
  
"Very well." The woman ended the session formally. Mercury's heart sank. She'd failed the psychologist's report; she knew it! She'd be stuck in this crummy prison forever! "I don't see that there is a problem with your release Miss Finnegan. So long as you attend regular counselling sessions regarding that temper of yours, you will be free to go as soon as the paperwork is completed."  
  
The woman left the cell, the handcuffs were removed, and Eloise could not contain her jubilance, punching the air in triumph. Finally, she was free! Oh the things she'd now be able to do...  
  
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"Dr McCoy, Matthew Cooper is on the line for you." The nasal twang of Hank's secretary cut through his throbbing headache like a red-hot sabre. He winced, but thanked her anyway and waited for her to put the young political aide through to his phone. In the back of his mind, someone roared his fury at being kept late at work yet again, wanted to rip the place down for being such a prison. Hank pushed the someone away forcefully, now wasn't the time for this!  
  
"Hi Hank, you there?" Matthew spoke evenly, dragging Hank out of his reverie unwillingly. "I was just wondering if you were free on Wednesday to come in and speak to Senator Hawley before the press conference on Thursday? Professor Xavier is coming up a day early, and we thought it'd be a good chance to get the final creases ironed out of the proposal?"  
  
"Actually," Hank began carefully, not wanting to offend his friends. The beast in his head fought against that idea, he didn't need friends, just the open wilds and a little taste of freedom. Hank pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose before continuing. "I was thinking about taking a break. I've not had a vacation for years I'm afraid, and as for your so- called creases, I have great faith that such sharp minds as Senator Hawley, Professor Xavier, and your good self, Matthew, can do all the ironing without my interference."  
  
"Sounds okay to me." Matthew laughed on the end of the line. "Take a break, you sound like you need it my friend. And give those hot Hawaiian girls my phone number, wont you?"  
  
"Hum," Hank smiled, "And here I was believing that you only had eyes for one hot girl at the moment, am I right?"  
  
"Hey, there are enough telepaths around here without you developing mutant powers Hank!" Matthew jibed good-naturedly. Human himself, he did however support the mutant cause, as did his boss Senator Hawley whose daughter Sam was a pupil at Xavier's school. Then he sighed unhappy, saying, "But no, she'd made it perfectly obvious she's not telepathic, she's totally oblivious to this here human's existence..."  
  
"Don't be hard on yourself, Matthew." Hank lectured kindly. "From what Professor Xavier has mentioned in passing about his sudden call home from Washington not so long ago, Blaze has not been having an easy time of life. Not the most auspicious moment for you to state your intentions I think."  
  
"Your right, of course, Hank. Just too damn clever for your own good sometimes, especially as I'm keeping you from that well-earned vacation. Get going, I'll tell the others, and don't forget to send us a postcard okay?"  
  
"Absolutely." Hank ended the call, leant back in his chair and smiled. He would take a break, but not to Hawaii. The sand might get in his fur. He frowned, looking suddenly at the back of his hands. What fur? Where had that thought come from? The beast in his mind looked at him, and snarled.........  
  
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The first thing Logan saw when he was finally brought around was a beautiful pair of predatory blue eyes looking right back at him. He sighed, very much relieved, and Ilehana smiled back at him gently.  
  
"Um..." Logan began, clearing his furry throat. "Thanks for the rescue babe."  
  
"Anytime." Vixen promised, flicking her long blonde ponytail back over her shoulder and turning from the bedside. "Dad's pencilled in a de-briefing for you in an hour, I told him you'd be fit again by then."  
  
"No problem." Wolverine agreed, sitting up and swinging his legs around to kick barefooted over the side of the bed. His wounds were already healed, but his pride might need a little more specialist attention. Ilehana was typing something into the computer as he wrapped his strong arms around her and kissed her long pale neck.  
  
"I missed you too Logan." Ilehana admitted, turning in his arms to kiss him briefly before ducking out to put some random equipment away. "I've already got Dad's word he's sending Gambit next time."  
  
"Yeah?" Logan didn't doubt that Ilehana would have her own way on that. "What'd ole Gumbo have to say to that?"  
  
"He took a little persuading, but nothing I couldn't handle." Vixen grinned slyly, producing a scowl from Wolverine.  
  
"One day, Ilehana..." He warned, growling at her as he pulled back on his sweatshirt.  
  
"He's worried about Blaze, Logan." Ilehana lectured with a sigh, wishing that Logan could have more of a sense of humour about her flirtatious friendship with Remy. "Gambit doesn't entirely trust us to look after her if he has to go away."  
  
"He don't trust us with Blaze, I don't trust him with you, sounds like we're all about even." Logan growled, ready to leave. Ilehana let him go. 


	3. 03

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.  
  
Scene 03  
  
"The test schedule is complete?"  
  
"Yes Ma'am." The shadowy man nodded as he spoke, wondering whom exactly it was he was speaking to. Even via the wonders of videophone, he couldn't make out the features of the woman at the other end of the line.  
  
"Any problems I should know about?" She asked, her voice mature and dignified, her accent English.  
  
"None." He confirmed gladly, hiding his sweaty hands beneath the table. This was not a woman to be crossed, even more so than he was not a man to be interfered with.  
  
"Very well, proceed as planned." The voice answered cold as frost. "Begin the demonstration, and contact the potential buyers. I will expect an update in two days."  
  
The link went dead, his screen flashing back to his bland desktop. Sighing, relieved, he closed the laptop up and looked out of the private jet's window. A new day, a new beginning, and one without mutants was just over the horizon...  
  
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A soft summer's night surrounded the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. The sky above was violet, decorated with bright twinkling stars like diamonds. It echoed expansively over the fresh-smelling breeze, laden sweet with golden pollen and honey from the many-blooming plants. The trees whispered softly amongst themselves, the grass grew rich and full underfoot. It was one of those nights when everything was right with the world. Even the insects in the foliage were chirping in a self-satisfied way. And, on the sloping roof of the gazebo, in front of the small, circular lawn hidden from the mansion itself by a protective circle of tall ageless trees, a young woman lay alone.  
  
"What the hell you doin' up there, Chere?"  
  
"Nothing." She breathed, softer than the night, more relaxed than the gentle breeze. "And it's wonderful. Come on up."  
  
Gambit accepted Blaze's hand easily, hoping that the gazebo roof would hold both of them. A foot on the railing and then he was sat besides his friend, not quite touching but close enough to feel her own body heat.  
  
"You bin hangin' about with Ilehana too much." Gambit grumbled. "You turnin' into a nature girl or somethin'?"  
  
"I could do nature girl." Blaze offered hopefully.  
  
"Non." Gambit grinned at her amicably. "You a city girl through an' through. Don't go changin' Petite."  
  
"Okay." Blaze agreed easily, just happy to have her friend sat with her. She'd come so close to losing him, to dismissing him, even hating him so recently. She didn't want that to happen. "But it is impressive, isn't it?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Nature. No, don't laugh Rem! I'm serious, look at that!" She waved her hand around vaguely in the direction of the sky. "Out here everything's so quiet. No noisy teenagers, lesson planning, or marking. No X-Men, no missions. Just little me and a huge great big sky..."  
  
"Sound like the elf bin getting' to you too, little one." He moaned, referring to the spiritual Nightcrawler. "Besides, this whole t'ing needs beer..."  
  
"Can't help you there." Blaze consoled him, being pretty much teetotal herself. "But there's some sodas and snacks in the bag behind you."  
  
"You plannin' on stayin' out here all night Chere?" Gambit wondered aloud, marvelling at her wealth of supplies.  
  
"Maybe. I hadn't decided. Its warm enough." Blaze's reply was stilted, and Gambit was forced to wonder how many nights she'd spent out here all ready? All those since she'd moved back into her own room once it was put back together after she'd trashed it? He shuddered, how much was Blaze trying to bear alone right now? Couldn't she trust him? Well, he'd never know if he didn't ask.  
  
"You done dis before." He stated it as a fact, knowing she wouldn't argue if he were right. "You not spent a single night in your room since that night."  
  
"No." An agreement, with no argument; Blaze was too ashamed to argue. With a sigh of sorrow and pain she brushed her long red curls back from her forehead. Her long eyelashes were suddenly coated in moisture she hoped he wouldn't notice, but already knew he had.  
  
"Laura..." Remy didn't really know what to say, his red-on-black eyes narrowing in concern as she avoided his grasp on her shoulder. Sighing he abandoned the topic, feeling if he didn't he'd be walking on broken glass. She'd talk when she was good and ready. "I'se hear Bobby plannin' a big night out. Even Havoc's comin' down, for that an' to see his brother. You wanna go along? Might even be fun, non?"  
  
"Sure." Blaze answered, not really listening. "I'm sorry Rem..." She muttered, finally meeting his eyes and wincing inside under his powerful gaze.  
  
"Don't do this to me Laura." He whispered, pulling her close and wrapping strong arms around her. "Don't push me away, okay? We bin through too much."  
  
"I'm so sorry..." She muttered, hiding her tearful face in the shoulder of her best friend. Gently he kissed her so-soft hair, and then held her, letting her sob her fear out as the elegant night whirled on around them.  
  
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Day 02, Tuesday.........  
  
"I'm sorry sir," The check-in woman was obviously not sorry, with her face plastered in make-up and her too-tight suit bulging across her stomach. "Your carry-on luggage is too large for the overhead compartments, so you're going to have to check it into the hold."  
  
"But you already told me," Hank McCoy argued patiently, "That I'm on my luggage limit for the flight. Will there be a supplement for checking this bag in with you on top of that?"  
  
"I'm afraid so." The woman's smile was forced.  
  
"Can you tell me how much exactly?" Still patient, though breathing deeply. The beast stalked just behind his consciousness.  
  
"I'll just have to work that out." That same forced smile, that 'how ignorant can one guy get' smug glance to her colleague at the next desk, and Hank was ready to roar at them that he was not ignorant, he'd just not been on vacation in a long while!  
  
Another long while later and he was finally in the boarding queue, paperwork on hand, for the flight. Almost as soon as he'd negotiated the frantic queue and militia-like guards and found his place, a young child perched on his mother's knee had started to kick the back of Hank's too small seat. This was going to be a very long flight. And when the woman next to him asked him if she'd seen him on TV, maybe Jerry Springer, he thought he might just tear the place apart. 


	4. 04

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars. Thanks to Knight of Avlee for the loan of his A-Level chemistry notes, mine being in a box somewhere no doubt!  
  
Scene 04  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Good morning Director." A smug male voice the CIA Director didn't recognise came over the phone line. Already the government's man's trained ear could here the tracer mechanisms whirring into place on the connection.  
  
"Can I help you?" Director Seymour was in no mood for timewasters.  
  
"I would hope that we could come to some mutual benefit, yes Director. I have been informed that you are the man in charge of monitoring intelligence regarding the mutant problem?"  
  
"Who are you?" Seymour demanded. "How did you find that out?"  
  
"I am, perhaps, your guardian angel." The stranger replied ominously. "I am also told that the President's daughter is on vacation at the moment on Hawaii with friends. A nightmare for you surely, trusted friends of the President's family, two of which you have recently been given reason to believe are actually dangerous mutants."  
  
"How do you know this?" Seymour nearly screamed. This information was top- secret classified stuff.  
  
"Keep your eye on the Hawaii situation." The voice counselled sagely. "Things will become startlingly clear, Director. We will talk again soon." The line went dead. Without even putting the handset down first, Seymour punched in an internal number and turned his frustration on the poor agent on the other end.  
  
"No sir, the trace was blocked, we don't know how but we're working on it..."  
  
"Fine." Seymour snapped, hanging up on the agent and buzzing his secretary. "Michelle, get me Honolulu."  
  
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The sun beat down on the Hawaiian Islands like glorious oppression. Palm trees and endless sun-blessed sand stretched as far as the eye could see, the sea itself decorated with surfers and breaking waves. The small beachside bar roofed with palm branches and staffed by smiling locals, was busy in a relaxed kind of way. Surfers and holidaymakers alike mingled, eating and drinking their fill. The President's daughter drank cocktails with her friends, innocent of all but the hunky surfer dudes waxing their precious boards.  
  
Later, two of her friends complained of symptoms similar to sunstroke or a hangover. They were dehydrated, dizzy and nauseous. Laughing mischievously, the others in the party teased them for not being able to handle their cocktails...  
  
In another room in the same hotel, on the same beach with the same bar, a young human girl called Sian packed her bags and prepared to leave the island paradise. She had to be in New York that night, meeting a friend. She'd not seen Alex, also known as Havoc, in a few months, but they went way back, had gone to the same high school. And like the good mate he was, he'd promised a big bash to greet her at the other end of the flight. Sian grinned to herself; tonight was going to be a night to remember, before jetlag laid her out totally!  
  
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"...There is also a tendency for metal ions in solution to take electrons from the metal and deposit themselves as neutral atoms. One of these tendencies is usually greater, and a potential difference is set up."  
  
The mutant graduate known as Colossus turned his back to the class and began scratching a diagram onto the board. They were all teachers at their old school now, him, Jubilee and Bobby, and whilst it was a strange feeling, somehow it felt right. Nowhere had ever felt quite like home as much as the mansion, and of course they were all X-Men, made sense to be on hand when the Professor might need them. He missed his other old classmates; Rogue had gone off travelling again and had not been heard of in a while. Kitty, after graduation, had taken some time out too, not quite knowing if teaching was where her heart lay, and everyone had respected that decision.  
  
"The potential difference set up when a metal is in contact with a molar solution of its ions at twenty-five degrees Celsius is known as the standard electrode potential, or SEP..." A frantically waving hand in the windowpane of the classroom door suddenly distracted Colossus. He frowned, what the heck did Jubilee want now? The lesson still had five minutes scheduled. Oh well, Jubilation Lee was never a woman to be kept waiting. "Okay gang, we'll finish this tomorrow, but make sure to read up on this chapter before then and yes I will be checking."  
  
"Finally!" Jubilee exclaimed as she pushed her way in past the exiting kids. "How long where you going to drag that out?"  
  
"For another five minutes." Colossus pointed out patiently. "Don't you ever teach anything?"  
  
"'Course I do." Jubilee perched on the edge of the desk and twiddled her large hoop earring that hung from her left ear around her finger. "Look, I'm not taking no for an answer. Bobby's been plannin' this for ages, you are comin' out with us."  
  
"Jubes, I got too much work. Y'know, teacher stuff, marking, planning, background reading..."  
  
"One night Peter." Jubilee enthused. "One night out, its hardly gonna cost you your job now is it? And its not just Bobby and Havoc either, Blaze and Gambit are comin' along an' you do not wanna pass those guys up on an offer of a wild time!"  
  
"Are you speaking from experience?" Colossus busied himself tidying away his notes into a draw whilst Jubilee absently tugged down her tiny blue top to cover a bit more of her middle. Unfortunately there wasn't enough material to go around, and so Colossus was forced to spend the rest of their conversation very carefully avoiding looking at her chest.  
  
"No, not exactly. But that's exactly my point, the stories Blaze comes out with..." Jubilee knew she wasn't getting through to him at all, so she sighed, turning her big eyes on him and pouting. "Please Peter, for me? It just wont be the same without you..."  
  
"Alright." Colossus finally agreed. "You talked me into it okay? But next time I need a substitute teacher you are so it Jubes." 


	5. 05

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.  
  
Scene 05  
  
"So where we meetin' Havoc, Bobby?" Jubilee asked as the five X-Men made their ways down the long drive to the taxi. Being summer, it was still light and birds still chattered in the trees around them. They were all dressed in their best, Bobby in a blue shirt, Colossus in a silver checked one, Gambit a dark red version. Jubilee, dressed in black stiletto boots, skin-tight blue PVC trousers and black top embroidered with yellow could hardly contain her excitement. Blaze on the other hand was more mellow than usual, though her strapless black top; black hipsters and wedge boots fitted her just well enough for her to stop traffic. Gloves a la Rogue covered her scabby arms where the wounds were at last starting to heal.  
  
"He's pickin' a friend up from the airport, so he'll meet us there..." Bobby began to explain, but was cut off by the sudden ringing of someone's mobile phone.  
  
"Blaze..." Gambit moaned, holding out his mobile at arm's length as though it might just bite him. Blaze sighed and accepted the ringing gadget, looked briefly at the caller id, then answered.  
  
"I'm sorry my husband's not home right now, he's picking our son up from football practice. Can I take a message?"  
  
Jubilee had to stifle her laughter with her hands over her mouth, whilst Bobby and Colossus exchanged curious looks, but Blaze was unabashed as the girl on the other end of the line hung up without replying. Smiling the Englishwoman threw the phone back to a grateful Remy.  
  
"I totally deserve an Oscar." She enthused as Jubilee looked on her teammate with a new awe.  
  
"What happens if they don't just hang up?" Iceman asked pointedly. Call him soft at your peril, but Bobby did feel a bit bad for the girl who'd had just been rather effectively dumped.  
  
"You know its never come up?" Blaze answered, shooting a wicked grin in Gambit's direction. "Must be the way he picks 'em!"  
  
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"Hey gang!" Alex was Scott Summers' brother no question, but there the likeness ended. He'd been Bobby's fun-loving roommate at college, and they'd both had scrapes a plenty in their time there. He was one of those people that pretty much everybody instantly liked, always with a smile. Blond haired and brown eyed, Havoc always reminded Blaze of an overgrown Labrador puppy. "Meet Sian, surfer-babe extraordinaire, flown in specially from Hawaii just to meet you all!"  
  
The girl was a pretty one, slight and feminine despite her very short cropped spiky brown hair. All three X-Men males instantly stood a little taller as Havoc introduced them, making Blaze and Jubilee exchange comical glances. A few hours later as the gang left the bar for a club, it was already pretty clear that Sian only had eyes for one of the guys, leaving Havoc to console Bobby and Remy...  
  
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"I don't dance!" Gambit was adamant, waving a salute as Blaze led Bobby and Havoc onto the dance floor. She at least knew better than to try and convince him. Jubilee on the other hand was getting more and more argumentative as she drank.  
  
"Aww, c'mon Remy!" She moaned, tugging on his arm dramatically. "You know you want to really..."  
  
"Jubilee, put him down, you don't know where he's been!" Blaze joked, untangling the Chinese-American from the Cajun and taking both Jubilee's hands in hers. Iceman and Havoc were already dancing, if it could be called that. Actually, they had pretty much fallen straight into the 'big fish, little fish, cardboard box' routine of random arm waving whilst standing very still. Still, Blaze knew the best way to get people actually dancing and enjoying themselves rather than feeling self-conscious was to give them someone to follow. The music was her addiction, her body possessed of it as it throbbed and triumphed around the room. Gambit was just relieved to see Blaze smiling so much as he went to find a corner of the bar to prop up. Maybe tonight would be exactly what she needed after all. He smirked knowingly as he passed an amorous pair of Colossus and Sian, kissing in a corner as though there was no one else about. Kids.  
  
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Jubilee and Havoc were well away with the music, when Bobby and Blaze finally called it quits and went in search of liquid refreshment.  
  
"What can I get you?" Bobby shouted politely over the buzz of the music. Blaze mimed a 'huh?' and put her hand to her ear to get him to repeat himself, which he did, leaning closer.  
  
"Ah!" Blaze cottoned on, "Just a water please. Thanks Bobby."  
  
"No problem." Iceman replied, smiling. "Enjoyin' yourself?"  
  
"Absolutely!" Blaze was telling the truth. "Welcome to my world."  
  
"Good." Bobby was also truthful. "I'm really glad you came along Blaze, Gambit's not the only one who's been worried sick about you y'know."  
  
"I know." Blaze nodded. "And I'm grateful to you all, I really am. I don't know what I'd do without the X-Men."  
  
"Me neither," He answered, before taking a slurp of his beer. "Though its odd being back here after uni, working and everythin'..."  
  
He was cut off by a sudden raucous shout from the other side of a small railing that kept the bar from the dance floor. Both X-Men glanced over, and whilst Bobby was vaguely shocked, Blaze was abruptly angry.  
  
"Five minutes!" She griped, running and swinging herself over the railing effortlessly. "I can't take my eyes off him for five minutes!" Bobby followed her, not that she noticed as she dove between thrown punches to stop the fight between Gambit and another man. "Back off the both of you! How the hell old do you think you are Rem? Fifteen?"  
  
"Who the heck are you, his mother?" The snide sneer was from the obvious cause of the fight, a skinny little black chick with a leering smile on her face. "What gives you the right to get involved?"  
  
Bobby found himself standing by Gambit's shoulder, quickly backed up by Jubilee and Havoc. In front of them, Blaze turned and looked at the girl who'd spoken, flicking her long red curls back off her bare shoulders aggressively. If there was one thing she really hated in the world, it was manipulative bitches that deliberately put their boyfriends in situations where they would have to fight for them. Not that this girl's man would have a chance against Remy, she swore possessively.  
  
"Don't start with me, girl." Blaze warned, feeling her palms itching hot under her gloves.  
  
"Or what, cow?" The girl snapped back, her boyfriend taking his place behind her shoulder even as Bobby called Blaze's name and made her turn around. He shook his head knowledgably; this was not a good idea. Blaze was inclined to agree, up until the point when the obnoxious girl spoke again. "Don't you dare turn your back on me! You think you're so hot or somethin'?"  
  
Jubilee uttered a low whistle as Blaze turned back to her rival, tilting her head to one side as her curls fell like fire, glinting in the strobe lights. The girl shifted her feet, eyes narrow. Blaze smiled slowly, almost cruelly, oblivious to the other members of the girl's gang of friends that lined up around her, looking for a fight.  
  
"Hotter than you'll ever be." Blaze threw out the spark to ignite the inferno. The girl went to punch the redhead, but Blaze blocked it easily. "Ooh, a girl who punches! This might even be fun!" Behind her, Gambit and Bobby, Jubilee and Havoc started forwards, finding themselves pretty much surrounded by the girl's associates. Blaze's infective grin caught, Jubilee threw the first X-Man punch, and all hell broke loose... 


	6. 06

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.  
  
Scene 06  
  
"You got yourselves involved in a petty bar fight!" Xavier was furious, glaring at his X-Men as they stood in his office in various states of drunkenness and with rapidly forming bruises on most of them. He looked from one to another slowly, knowing via his telepathy exactly how abashed each member of his team was. From Colossus, Jubilee and Bobby he sensed the most remorse. Gambit waited dutifully as he was capable of, arms folded defensively. Only Blaze dared meet the Professor's eyes. Havoc was not under Xavier's authority, but he and his friend were being both sobered up and lectured by Scott in the kitchen as Xavier spoke. "Can you even imagine what might have happened? What an effect this might have had?"  
  
"None of us used our powers..." Bobby pointed out, examining the carpet carefully. "We were careful not to show that we're mutants."  
  
"And Peter wasn't even there." Jubilee made sure the Professor realised this even as the room was dancing around her a little. Xavier glanced to Colossus; he really didn't look so well. And although Jubilee was right, this was hardly the state he expected an X-Man to come home in, visibly wavering on the spot as though he was going to fall over. He'd also done nothing to stop the fistfight.  
  
"You are school teachers and X-Men!" Xavier roared. "What kind of an example is this for you to be setting for the students here! You three younger team members have disappointed me enough, but you, Blaze, Gambit, you should have known better! And am I to understand that you actually started this whole escapade?" He got no answer off them, but he didn't need one. "Get out of my sight." He muttered finally, the power of those words betraying his disappointment far more than any shout he could muster. "Gambit, one moment."  
  
Blaze hung about outside Xavier's office, examining the damage to her nails and leaning on a pillar. Nobody else was about; the whole school as quiet as it ever got, but still she couldn't quite make out what was being said behind the closed office door. When it finally opened again, freeing Gambit from the Professor's wrath, she sighed and went over to him.  
  
"And?" She asked; tilting his chin in her hands to better examine what was going to be a nice black eye by morning.  
  
"He say I need action this much, he gonna have to sniff out a mission for me, an' tomorrow too." Gambit filled in with a sigh, wincing as Blaze poked the bruise on his face. "Don't know when I'se be back Mon Amie."  
  
"Tomorrow's ages away." Blaze pointed out, half smiling as she let her fingers drop from his chin to her own throat. Dropping her eyes before meeting his slightly confused glance again, she tugged absently at a long curl. "Isn't it?"  
  
"Huh." Gambit's voice was suddenly husky, a half-smile on his face now too. "Don't go tellin' Gambit the miracle cure we needed for you was jus' some good ole catfight, Chere..."  
  
"There's nothing like letting off some steam." Blaze replied, stalking away from Gambit towards the stairs before glancing back over her shoulder. "You coming?"  
  
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Day 03, Wednesday.........  
  
Hank McCoy was beginning to think this whole idea of a vacation had been a very, very bad one. He'd come to this national park hoping for some peace, quiet and tranquillity. But last night he'd made the unfortunate discovery that his rented mobile home was parked ridiculously close to that of a gang of wild students intent on partying their lives away. Five times he'd gone across to ask them to turn it down, before seeking the park warden's assistance. The park warden however had been otherwise engaged, and so Hank was forced to spend the rest of the night with a pillow over his head and unsuccessfully pretend that he really could go without sleep.  
  
He arose the next morning as the sun flung itself over the horizon enthusiastically. Its cheery brightness made Hank wince as he dressed, pulling on odd socks before deciding he didn't care. He knocked the full kettle of boiling water from the kitchen work surface by accident whilst trying to make instant coffee. Then, all a-fluster, he proceeded to bang his head against the cupboard door as he bent down to clear up the mess. Giving it all up as a bad job, he exited the caravan and stormed off into the surrounding countryside, well aware that at last the kids next door had gone to sleep.  
  
His bad mood was finally starting to fade, calmed like a savage beast dosed with tranquillisers by the beauty around him, when the peace was shattered by obnoxious yelling. Humans, Hank thought angrily, could rarely appreciate the beauty of the natural world without trying to ruin it for everyone else. He followed the trail towards the sound of the screeching argument, the beast in his head roaring his displeasure. Rip them up; tear them to pieces for the racket they were making! Scatter them in the bushes like carrion; give them back to the wild things...  
  
Rounding a corner he came face to face with the kind of domestic argument usually reserved for dramatic soap operas. Wedded bliss and a relaxing holiday did not seem to be doing this couple any good, the man held his middle-aged wife by her frizzy grey hair as she screamed at him and hit him with her compass. Determined to split them up, to restore some peace and tranquillity to the forest, Hank stormed forwards. His anger, all stored up, was like soda in a bottle. The more and more shook up he got, the closer he came to exploding with dramatic effects. So this was, Hank had reached his tolerance limit and passed it, and somewhere over he few hundred metres between him and the squabbling couple, Hank McCoy simply ceased to be.  
  
He roared, stretching his arms wide and baring his teeth, making himself as big and as scary as possible; dominant and not to be trifled with. Suddenly aware they were not alone, the man and his wife looked up from their argument. Their faces paled, their jaws slackened and they stared at him. Hank stared right back for a second, taking their eye contact as a threat the beast inside him charged forward, muscles ripping through clothing, arms lengthening and solidifying as he charged, suddenly long and strong enough for him to propel himself forwards with his hands as well as his feet. His face began to change, the snarl rippling to form a squatter nose, broader mouth, and his hair turning blue at the roots. More fur covered his now bare skin, dense enough to resist the coldest night. The couple screamed at the top of their lungs, and ran.  
  
The beast wanted to chase them. Hank fought back with all he had, horrified by what was happening to him. This wasn't right! The beast in his mind should be suppressed; the way Charles Xavier had helped him to suppress him all these long years! The beast paused, on the edge of another charge, and looked back over his shoulder, asking Hank if he wanted to join the chase? Hank in turn shook his head, indicating that they should return to the campsite. There was a mobile in the caravan, he could ring Xavier and get help. Hank glanced down at his now oversized hands, covered in blue fur and fingers tipped with dark nails, and hoped he could still operate a phone.  
  
The beast paused, then turned and ambled back to the place in Hank's mind that was most familiar to it, willing for the moment to go along with his alter ego's plan. Slowly, Hank turned and trudged along in the beast's uncomfortable form and hoped no one else would see him like this. It seemed a shallow dream, but he could hope.  
  
The campsite smacked of everything Hank hated about tourists, kids running around screaming and shooting water pistols at anything that moved, whether they wanted to be squirted or not. Proud parents armed with video cameras to capture the moment when a large, blue, hairy monster walked straight into the path of the ice-cold water. Their screams and shock and running enraged the beast still further, and suddenly Hank found himself sat watching from inside his own mind as the beast rampaged effectively through the campsite. In not very long at all, not a camper van was the right way up, no glass was unsmashed, no human left standing his ground.  
  
Beast roared his frustration that already his fun was over, before turning his back on the collection of still-rolling video cameras and heading back into the vastness of the forest. 


	7. 07

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.  
  
Scene 07  
  
I know it was totally pointless Vixen, The telepathic conversation between Vixen and Blaze had been going on virtually all morning. Ilehana, always so noble, was pretty disgusted like her father about how the X-Men had acted the night before. But at the same time, she sensed the change in Blaze's mindset, and so like a good scientist she was trying to find out why this was so. Nobodies' lives depended on it, the world was not going to end if we had got our backsides kicked, and that's exactly my point.   
  
You're not making sense Blaze. Ilehana pointed out as they cut through the crowds of kids from opposite sides of the mansion, converging on the rec. room.  
  
Do I ever? Blaze grinned in reply. Seriously though, since I nearly lost it everybody, including me has been treating me like some helpless victim. Like someone who needs sympathy, that you have to walk on thin ice to talk to, and I'm sick of it. I used to be a bitch, and last night proved I still am one. I'm still me, and I don't have to be a victim anymore.   
  
Good for you. Ilehana was impressed, and genuinely happy at the change in Blaze. They entered the rec. room together, noting how busy it was with the TV turned up too loud. I'm glad...  
  
"Hey Vixen, have you seen this?" Bobby called Ilehana over to the TV. The news was on, showing dodgy video camera footage of what looked like a very large animal trashing a campsite. "Its at the national park you were at, isn't it? One of your bears trying to get your attention?"  
  
"No, I know the bears, they wouldn't..." Vixen winced as whatever it was overturned a car with barely a flex of his muscles.  
  
"It looks like your mission has found you, Gambit." Xavier spoke evenly, only a slight frown betraying his continued disappointment in his team members. "Go with him, Ilehana, and see if you can make sense of this."  
  
"Hey, wait just a minute." Logan objected, stepping forward with his arms folded. "They're calling this a 'Big Foot', you sure the two of 'em are enough for this job, Professor?"  
  
"What Logan, you worried 'bout me not takin' care of the Vixen?" Gambit grinned lopsidedly. When would the Wolverine learn that he set himself up for this? Hopefully never, it was too much fun, and Vixen always rose to the ruse impeccably.  
  
"That's exactly what I'm worried about, Gumbo." Logan snarled aggressively.  
  
"That he won't take care of her," Blaze asked sweetly, "Or that he'll take too good care of Vixen for your taste Logan? Not jealous are we?"  
  
"Gambit can take care of me all he wants, Logan." Ilehana did not appreciated being talked about as if she was somebody's property. Especially not Logan's, much as she loved him, she thought she'd got him better trained than this. "Question is, who we going to get to baby-sit you whilst we're away?" With that she turned and left, flicking her long hair back over her shoulder as Gambit followed, flashing Blaze a grin and making the Englishwoman shake her head in vague despair.  
  
Blaze, phone's ringing. Was Ilehana's parting telepathic call, sending Blaze from the room too as Jubilee asked "Has anyone seen Colossus today? I thought he'd get up to wish Sian goodbye, but he's just missed her and Havoc..."  
  
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"Good morning, Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, how can I help you?" Blaze answered the phone in her best teacher's voice, perched on the edge of the desk in Xavier's office.  
  
"You're a hard girl to track down, Blaze, I'll give you that much." The voice was male; the accent South African, Blaze knew him instantly.  
  
"Lance? I don't understand, how did you... Why have you... Lance?"  
  
In a scruffy office half the world away, a blond haired blue-eyed policeman sat at his desk, too warm in the afternoon heat and the confines of a pinstripe cotton shirt. Pinning the phone between shoulder and ear, he toyed with the wedding band on his finger as though it shielded him from the emotional trauma of talking to his ex-girlfriend. Eight years and Blaze still sounded as hot on the other end of the line as she ever had... But that was why he was doing this, wasn't it? A favour for someone he respected.  
  
"Yeah, its me. As for the how," Lance swung his chair around and put his feet on the window ledge, staring out over Cape Town. "If that partner of yours has got so lazy to actually get caught not that long ago, I figured you wouldn't be far away from where the American cops had his current address. I mean, how stupid can you get, getting done for..."  
  
"You don't know what you're talking about, Lance." Blaze was suddenly on the defensive. Gambit had never revealed what he had got himself in jail for, providing himself and Blaze a way out from under the threatening storm cloud that had been Alessandro Jacobi. And Blaze respected her long-term partner in crime too much to want to find out what had happened from anyone but him. It irked her that as simple as this, Lance had found them and knew things she didn't. She'd known dating a cop could never work out well.  
  
"Hey, I know you well enough to know there's a long story involved, Blaze." Lance's eyes narrowed, defensive himself now. "I'm only calling as a favour. I've a folder just been put on my desk that might interest you."  
  
"Yeah?" Blaze asked. "What?"  
  
"Mercury's out."  
  
Blaze nearly dropped the phone. "Since when?" She stuttered.  
  
"Since today." Lance growled. "And nobody thought to tell the arresting officer, y'know? Promotions don't mean nothing around here sometimes."  
  
"Promotions?" Blaze tried to dismiss the worrying news and concentrate on catching up with the gossip. "Congratulations. Anything else pressing you should be telling me about?"  
  
"Aw, not much." Lance smiled, "Well, I'm married, and my baby daughter will be one soon."  
  
Blaze wanted to coo over that, to go all motherly and reply that hers would be too. Her heart stopped briefly. Jessica would be one soon. Shaking her head, Blaze dragged herself back to the present.  
  
"I'm glad, Lance. And thank you for the warning about Eloise; I'm sure it'll be fine. Take care of yourself, and your family, okay?" The lump in her throat made her voice quiver, made Lance wonder if perhaps them breaking up had been in Blaze's plans, or whether she'd once seen herself as his wife?  
  
"Don't I get to know anything about what you're up to? You're living at a school now?"  
  
"Qualified teacher right here." Blaze smiled. "And don't say I told you so, okay? Crime did pay, just in more ways than one, and this isn't just any ordinary school."  
  
"As always Blaze, I believe you. Take care yourself, and tell Gambit I said he still owes me for that card game I beat him at." Lance took his feet off the windowsill and smiled.  
  
"I know exactly what he'll say, but sure. Bye Lance, stay in touch."  
  
The office door opened as Blaze put the receiver down heavily, all pretence of a smile dropping from her face. She nodded to the Professor as he drove his wheelchair into his office, and then made to exit before he could form any awkward questions. Unfortunately he wasn't alone, Matthew Cooper had just arrived to pick Xavier up for their latest venture, and pleased as Blaze would normally have been to see her friend, she just wasn't in the mood for politics.  
  
"Hi Blaze." Matthew was dressed in what for him counted as casual gear, a shirt tucked into his jeans and no tie. He wasn't much older than Blaze, with smartly cropped light brown hair and quick hazel eyes, tall and slim- built. All this Blaze observed in a second before pushing past him and his obvious disappointment to leave the room. "What did I do?" Matthew asked Xavier, who shook his head sadly.  
  
"Nothing, Matthew." Xavier liked Matthew a great deal, could see the boy's potential even if he had doubts about it himself. But Blaze was the type of girl who could bring down presidents. "Blaze hasn't been herself recently, don't take it personally. Now, to business..." 


	8. 08

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 08 

Knowing what she had to do, Blaze headed straight for the garage and her pet Aston Martin. She left the mansion seconds after Ilehana and Gambit flew the X-Jet off into the distance, the passage of the jet making the glass in the windows shake. Blaze gave the noisy plane a run for its money though, her stereo turned on so loud the glass in the Aston's windows shook. She didn't tell anybody that she was going, just up and left without a goodbye.

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The X-Jet was in its final approach as Ilehana, multitasking in the way only she could, sent out her telepathic plea for help. They had barely got the ramp open before her plea was answered, much to Gambit's surprise.

"Um, why there a bear waitin' for us?"

"Because I asked her to help; she knows what we're looking for and where we'll find it." Vixen answered as if stating the perfectly ordinary, walking past Gambit to greet her bear-friend, whose name was Tarra.

"An' I thought workin' with Wolverine was bad enough." Gambit commented, shaking his head slightly before following Ilehana, trusting the Vixen that this huge grizzly wasn't about to maul them both to death. Tarra, being an inquisitive, friendly, brownish kind of soul gave Gambit a good once over paw before decided that his scent wasn't too bad. Vixen then directed the she-bear's mind back to what they were here for.

#This way.# Tarra told the human-wolf who'd befriended her not so long ago, setting off into the forest at a comfortable lope for a bear. Vixen had already decided to stay in her human form on this mission; a form that struck fear into most animals and so might be a weapon she could use. Also, Tarra would at least wait for her, where as if she was a bear too, poor Gambit would most definitely get left way behind.

As it was, Gambit soldiered on bravely despite not been one hundred percent comfortable trekking through the densest quarters of woodland Tarra could find. Ilehana on the other hand felt at home, enjoying her work and the shifting spectres of sunlight on lush green foliage. Her sensitive nose, though not as well adapted as the Wolverine's, picked up traces of each of the forest's creatures, from the great bear in front of her to the smallest grubs working their way through the decaying detritus underfoot.

Tarra kept them away from human trails and habitation, attaching importance to this avoidance that Ilehana had been trying to instil in many of the national park's bears, after plans were raised to cull their numbers to protect tourists. So far her strategy had worked, and the plans had been shelved for which she was grateful. It seemed their quarry had had the same idea. Marks of his passage were well visible to the woman who hunted with wolves; obviously he'd had enough of a run in with the humans at the campsite.

Abruptly they burst through the trees onto a grassy floodplain dotted with patches of bulrushes and hazardous patches of swamp. The river was at its lowest level, this being the height of summer, but Vixen could see how at the spring thaw it would almost stretch to the edge of the trees. It was a beautiful spot.

Gambit did not appreciate the beauty. He was too busy ogling at the large hairy blue beast wading up to his calves in the shallows, apparently fishing. The Beast sniffed twice, before turning to address the unwanted intruders. Water spouted like a tidal wave as he suddenly charged towards them, black eyes angry and unfeeling, teeth sharp and bared.

Tarra met his charge head on, causing Gambit to hold back on the charged card in his hand. Ilehana would not thank him if he blew her friend away. The great bear grappled with Beast, her roar of anger when he forcefully threw her away making the forest quiver. Gambit launched his attack, wondering as he readied another card what on earth Vixen was up to?

Ilehana frowned as she reached out with her telepathic ability, trying to reach whatever kind of creature this was. Obviously a mutant; but was he one she could reason with, or one so warped by his mutation that there was nothing left to negotiate with? She blanketed him with her aura of power in the same instant as Gambit's first attack hit, knocking him backwards into the water. The shock of this new form of attack unnerved the dominant animalistic force in the mutant's mind, revealing in an instant to Ilehana a scared and cowering soul she knew by name.

"Hank?"

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"C'mon Colossus, you can't be that hung over!" Jubilee banged on the closed bedroom door again, louder this time, and shouted through the wood. "Get your lazy backside out here and stop scaring us!"

There was no answer. In Hawaii, two of the President's daughter's friends were rushed into hospital, covered in large red and angry blisters and constantly either coughing or throwing up. Bobby, growing increasingly impatient and concerned for his friend took hold of the door handle and froze the lock, the ice making the mechanism crack. Knowing Colossus' door stuck at the bottom, that was where Bobby kicked it, throwing the door wide open. Peter was laid face down on the bed on top of the covers, still dressed in the clothes he'd been wearing the night before.

"Hey man, what's going on? Didn't think you'd drunk that much?" Bobby went to put a hand to Colossus' shoulder as Jubilee peered around Iceman. Bobby's hand froze millimetres away from his fellow mutant's neck, noticing that not only was Peter barely breathing, there were large, ugly welts on his neck that looked downright painful. "Peter?" Resolving himself, Bobby grabbed the chemistry teacher and rolled him onto his side. More sores on his face, Colossus' eyes were closed tightly against the pain. No sooner had Bobby rolled him over than he started coughing heavily.

"We've got to get him to the infirmary." Jubilee demanded. "I'm getting Logan…"

All Bobby could do was wait until Wolverine and Cyclops arrived to lift the hefty Colossus. Then he and Jubilee followed not two steps behind the older men, staying by their former classmate's side as Storm jumped in with her nurse's training to administer what first aid she could. Cyclops went straight to the Professor, rather needlessly as Xavier was already on his way to Cerebro to call his daughter the doctor back to the mansion. They could only hope she would know what to do…

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#All right, Dad. We're on our way.#

Vixen signed off the brief conversation abruptly, before turning back to her companions. Hank McCoy was sat on his furry blue haunches, thoroughly miserable, confused and ashamed. Ilehana wished she had answers for her friend, but she doubted he would listen to her even if she did.

Tarra was sat diligently grooming her thick pelt, and Ilehana suspected it was as much an effort to restore a bit of confidence as to make sure her coat remained healthy. Bears usually only had to fear physical confrontation with other bears, but Hank was now swollen to a muscular size large enough to take on a much bigger grizzly than the young female. Ilehana nodded to her friend, thanking her for her help, and Tarra departed to be reunited with her cubs at their den.

#No more adventures?# The bear pleaded. #I'll burn off all my fat before the winter at this rate.#

#I hope not.# Vixen replied. #And don't forget that bend in the river I showed you where the fish have to jump; it might just come in useful to you and your cubs.#

Tarra nodded, a strange reaction for a bear, making Vixen worried about the effects her contact with wild animals had on their behaviour. But as quick as she had thought it, Tarra was gone, melting into the trees.

"You'se really Hank McCoy?" Gambit was having problems seeing the likeness between this Beast and the smartly dressed doctor friend of the Xaviers. But then again, when he had first met Dr McCoy he'd suspected that he might be a mutant suppressing his powers. And if there was something Gambit knew a thing about, it was mutants suppressing their powers like Blaze had done for years. With Blaze, her powers had frequently built up to levels inside of her where she just couldn't suppress the fire anymore, and the slightest thing could trigger her off. Usually, the effects were not healthy, explosions that had killed on numerous occasions. Looked to Remy like Hank's powers had just about exploded outta him.

"At your service, Gambit." Hank replied sullenly, leaving no doubt in Gambit's mind. For all the physical changes, Hank's well-educated voice was as impeccable as always.

"I'm sorry to rush you Hank," Ilehana waited until Hank met her eyes, letting him feel a touch of her worry for Colossus. "But I'm needed back at the school, and it sounds like I could use your help…"

"I can't Ilehana…" Hank was on the verge of tears, on the threshold of a total breakdown. He could not handle what had happened to him! "To let people see me like this…"

"Hey, there plenty of uglier mugs than you at that school, Mon Amie." Gambit quipped with a charming smile. Hank scowled at him. "An' you know well as I do Vixen don't ask for favours easy, non?"

"You can't hide from what's happened to you Hank." Vixen pointed out with endless wolf logic. "But you can be with people who care about you and will help you figure it all out."

Slowly, Hank stood. He turned and looked mournfully at the inviting mossy green of the forest, smelt the joyous growing things and heard the endless praising birds. Out there, for a small while, the Beast within him had found a place to be. But he was not the Beast; the Beast was only a part of him. Hank McCoy could not live that life, constantly avoiding all contact with his own species. And so he turned back to the X-Jet, to his friends who promised to accept him no matter how inhuman he now appeared. Somehow, he knew the exact words to describe how he felt.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both…" Putting all of the Beast's angry thoughts to one side, he strode purposefully towards the jet, not looking back nor meeting his friend's eyes. "Robert Frost I believe, a poem entitled 'The Road Not Taken'.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-, I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference."


	9. 09

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.  
  
Scene 09  
  
The jet had barely landed in the hanger below the basketball court when Ilehana and Hank emerged at a run to go straight to Colossus' bedside. Logan was disappointed but not surprised when Ilehana couldn't even give him a smile, let alone a kiss; all she would say telepathically was Later.   
  
So Wolverine, out of place and at a loss whilst the infirmary was crowded with worried X-Men, turned to Gambit who emerged from the jet a little more slowly, laden with various bits to put away in the ready room.  
  
"Blaze not with you?" Logan asked, a little confused.  
  
"Non." Gambit replied, suddenly equally confused. "I'se thought she be here?"  
  
"She left the rec. room right after you guys; not seen her since." Wolverine filled in, becoming mildly irritated at the incredulous look on Gambit's face. "You gone and lost her Gumbo?"  
  
"I ain't lost nobody Logan!" Gambit snapped, equally irritated and suddenly worried. Frowning, the Cajun squared up to the Wolverine who never would back down.  
  
"Not fighting over me are we boys?" A soft English voice quipped as Blaze entered the ready room, opening a cupboard and routing through the contents.  
  
"Where the hell you been Firefly?" Logan asked, hating feeling like he didn't know what was going on. Fortunately for Wolverine's peace of mind Gambit didn't look too much wiser.  
  
"Taking care of something." Blaze replied cryptically, tugging out her training gear. She turned to leave, but the looks on her friends' faces weren't going to allow her to just walk out without a better explanation. "Look, I've been setting things in place, a precaution against bad news. But it's not the type of thing I want splashing back in the faces of the X- Men, okay? Especially not right now with Colossus in the way he is. So drop it will you, unless we're going to install clocking out machines in this place?"  
  
Logan and Gambit suddenly appreciated what Blaze was telling them. She knew they'd go insane if they were grounded at the mansion, why should she be any different? And if she didn't pry as to where they had been or their escapades, what right did they have to interview her over hers? No doubt about it, Blaze was back to normal.  
  
"Are either of you busy right now?" Blaze changed the subject deftly. Both men shook their heads. "The kids are all stressed out, and the Professor wants me to throw something together to take their mind off things."  
  
"What did you have in mind?" Logan asked, unfolding his arms and raising an eyebrow. Blaze grinned...  
  
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Blowing sharply on her whistle, Blaze called the rowdy gang of kids and two X-Men to order, sort of.  
  
"Alright, here's the game!" She called out, pulling her long red hair back into a ponytail. "No-powers football, and that's soccer to all you Americans out there! Wolverine and Gambit are picking the sides; you hear your name called out, go stand with you team captain and put on a bib, red for Gambit, blue for Logan. I'm referee," Blaze cautioned, "What I say goes, okay Gambit?" Remy shrugged at her innocently, making her smile. "Everybody set?" Random nods from the crowd of children and teenagers. "Then lets get started!"  
  
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Mercury marvelled at the freedom, the expanse of it, all these people, different cars, huge buildings. Sun and smog on her skin both equally pleasant after so long. And the noise! The buzz of someone's minidisk player as they walked past oblivious, the ring tone of someone's mobile phone, all these technological nuances she'd missed. And the clothes! She'd never felt so out of fashion! What a disaster!  
  
Somehow, following her feet, Eloise found her way to a small suburban park. Children's swings made out of old debris and strung up with chains called to her. She sat wearily, hands grasping the metal, staring straight into nothingness. It took barely a moment for her powers to focus, still strong as ever despite all this time. Under her grasp the metal became alive, flowing, trickling, doing her bidding. The chains first fused, and then became long glistening poles as if freshly forged, and all the while supporting her weight.  
  
Paint began to peel off the supporting frame, the metal rejecting its camouflage in chunks and flakes. The freshly revealed metal glistened briefly as though liquid, before becoming shiny and hard like silver coloured ice. The metal tied itself in knots for her, made itself presentable for her pleasure. It wrapped around her like vines on a trellis, making Mercury smile. This was what she had been pining for, this control, and this close contact where she could almost feel the metal infusing her skin to her soul.  
  
But what now? Her mind demanded suddenly. What to do next? Eight lost years...  
  
Part of her didn't want to think about it, not right now. But the other part, the cold, metallic part, would not be quieted. It was them or her, if she ever wanted to be really free; she had to make sure this could never happen again.  
  
No! She accosted herself. How could she think like that, like paranoia for the sake of paranoia! Wasn't that what had got her in this mess in the first place? Nobody was going to come after her, nobody wanted revenge, wanted her dead... Did they?  
  
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"How are we doing?" The Professor asked his daughter quietly, eyes not on her but taking in the subdued bustle of the others in the infirmary. Hank and Storm, dressed in lab coats, were running various tests on assorted machinery, trying to figure out what was wrong with Colossus. Jubilee was covering Peter with an insulating blanket, attending to her unconscious friend's every possible need, whilst Bobby and Scott paced the room uncomfortably. Kurt had found himself a corner where he was out of the way and was frantically praying, convinced, as they were all becoming, that a miracle was needed here.  
  
"Not well." Ilehana replied, not looking up from the light microscope she was using, also dressed in lab coat and stethoscope around her neck. "It's a viral infection, but one I've not seen before. I'm treating him with antibiotics, which has had some effect, but the damage to his lungs had occurred so rapidly that I'm not sure we caught it in time..."  
  
"Very well." Xavier replied, certain it was not. Colossus might not have very long left. In a chance moment, all the X-Men cluttering the infirmary were suddenly silent. The only sound was the air rasping slowly in and out of Colossus' damaged lungs like nails on a blackboard. Xavier was not the only one to wince at the noise.  
  
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The sun was setting over the school as a whistle sounded sharply. Gambit dropped the football abruptly and looked up at the referee. Blaze pointed straight at the penalty spot, and reached for a yellow card. Gambit wasn't entirely sure about the rules of this game, but he doubted this was a good omen.  
  
"What'd I do?" He asked, holding his hands open as if to defend his innocence. "Blaze?"  
  
"You forgot you're supposed to kick the ball, not catch it!" Blaze laughed, "Hence 'football'? And you're inside the penalty area, which means Logan's team get a free shot on goal and you get a booking." She held up the yellow card for the kids to see and was roundly applauded by Logan's winning side.  
  
"Dis game sucks." Gambit folded his arms stubbornly, "What a bookin' mean anyways?"  
  
"Means if you do anything wrong again, including talk back to the ref, and get another yellow, you're off le Beau." Blaze smiled sweetly as she nodded to the kid Logan was putting forward to take the penalty. Gambit's 'keeper didn't have a chance; the ball hit the top corner of the net and Wolverine's team cheered again.  
  
"Hey, I t'ought the ref s'posed to be impartial." Remy protested. "How 'bout lettin' us have one of 'em penalties Petite?" Blaze laughed again and went to get the game restarted at the centre spot. Logan couldn't stop grinning, his team now winning three-to-nothing as he accepted a high-five from the goal scorer. But then all three X-Men stopped as a voice sounded in their heads.  
  
X-Men to the briefing room. Xavier called to all the adults at the school, Matthew, Hank, you are welcome to join us.   
  
"Is it just me," Wolverine asked Blaze and Gambit as they left the kids to finish the game themselves. "Or does this really not sound good?" 


	10. 10

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.  
  
Scene 10  
  
Matthew Cooper felt like the new kid at school, starting mid-way through term when everyone else already knew exactly how things worked. He didn't much like the sensation, but he wouldn't, couldn't miss this briefing. The first human allowed to participate in a briefing of the X-Men? He didn't much doubt it. He entered the briefing room behind an uncommunicative Jubilee; felt he stood out as an outsider as Bobby and Storm took their places on autopilot, all so worried about Colossus...  
  
His hopes pricked up a bit as his ears heard an easy conversation approaching the room. Logan, by the sound of the complaining, with Blaze and Gambit. The doors slid open again to admit the three less subdued X- Men.  
  
"Can't you ever be optimistic about anything, Logan?" Blaze teased, going to pull out her usual seat.  
  
"So I'm a 'glass is half empty' kinda guy, ain't nothin' nobody can do about it." Logan replied, taking the seat to Blaze's right side, whilst Gambit did the same to her left.  
  
"Glass, head, what the difference, eh Ami?" Gambit joked, pushing his chair back on to two legs rather than four. Logan scowled at him, but Matthew finally found his voice before the Wolverine could put Gambit in the ground.  
  
"Does it matter where I sit?" The politician asked politely.  
  
"Not really. Pick a chair." Logan answered. Matthew did as he was told, reaching out for the nearest free seat, which happened to be the one next to Wolverine. "But not that one." Logan finished with a warning growl as Gambit and Blaze sniggered. Matthew calmly breathed in and moved one chair over, raising an eyebrow at Logan who nodded his approval. Matthew had never been so glad to sink into a chair in all this life, trying to hide his embarrassment of making a fool of himself in front of Blaze. Not that he'd made much of an impression even then, too busy now retying her hair in a ponytail and rolling her eyes at another of Gambit's stupid jokes. Matthew wondered what he'd have to do to get her to look at him like she looked at the Cajun...  
  
"Excuse me." Ilehana announced herself slightly breathlessly, dropping elegantly into the empty seat next to Wolverine. Of course, Vixen and Wolverine, that was why that seat had been already taken. Sheesh, just like being at school, Matthew sniped mentally. Ilehana shot him an amused look despite her obvious tiredness. Uh-uh, now he'd put his foot in it with the telepath... Matthew didn't have time to make amends as Professor Xavier himself arrived, accompanied by a huge, blue, hairy stranger. Used as he was to the varying degrees of mutation, Matthew's eyes still shot out on stalks a little as he beheld the Beast for the first time.  
  
"Make yourself comfortable, Hank." Xavier advised, moving his wheelchair into position at the head of the meeting.  
  
"Hank?" Matthew asked, jaw dropping open as Beast turned his baleful eyes on his friend. "How? When? I didn't even know you were a mutant..."  
  
"Principles of mind over matter, it's sometimes possible for a strong- minded mutant to suppress their mutation for long periods of time, especially if they have a telepath's help." The soft explanation not from Hank or even Xavier, but from Blaze. Matthew met her brown eyes, wondering what he was reading there? But she dropped the eye contact quickly, glancing apologetically to Xavier. Matthew glanced from one mutant to the next; Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Storm, Jubilee, Iceman, Xavier, Hank, Gambit, Blaze, Wolverine and Vixen. Nobody else seemed the slightest bit surprised by the change in Hank's appearance, a fact that made Matthew feel even more sidelined. Oh well, at least Blaze was speaking to him now...  
  
"Ilehana?" Xavier turned to address his daughter; telepathically aware of how much she was dreading giving this news. He washed her with what sympathy and strength he could muster, but the news he had already been made aware of had cut him in two, he didn't have much strength left to share.  
  
"Colossus is severely ill." Vixen began carefully; taking what comfort she could from her father whilst reinforcing her telepathic barriers against the swell of emotion in the room. Peter was a well-liked member of the team, and not everyone had been aware of how serious his condition was. This was not going to be easy. "He has a virus..."  
  
"A genetically engineered one?" Storm had been infected herself once, instantly thinking how easy it would still be to use such a weapon against the X-Men. Blaze's eyes narrowed too at the suggestion, but Ilehana shook her head.  
  
"No, it's natural, though I can't work out where it's come from. But I'm afraid it's also deadly. He has maybe a few hours left. There's nothing I can do."  
  
Silence. Not even Logan's super-hearing could pick up a muttered comment. Faces paled around the room, eyes filled with tears, the swell of fear and torment like the rising tide against the telepathic Xaviers. But nobody said a thing.  
  
"We're placing the school under quarantine until we can figure more of this out." Hank took over the briefing. "Ilehana and I will need all of you to report to the infirmary for tests, then to help us test the children, starting with the ones that have the most contact with Colossus."  
  
"Have you cancelled our Washington trip like I asked you to, Matthew?" Xavier asked.  
  
"Yeah, sorry, meant to tell you." Matthew sat a little straighter. "The press conference and debate were to be cancelled anyway, the President is on his way to Hawaii. Two of his daughter's friend's have been rushed into hospital there..." Matthew frowned suddenly, knowing there was something important there but not spotting it. Bobby was more clued in.  
  
"Did you say Hawaii?" Matthew nodded as Iceman leant eagerly forward, meeting Jubilee's eyes. "Isn't that where Sian had flown in from last night?"  
  
"Could there be a connection?" Blaze asked as Jubilee nodded.  
  
"Its possible. Did they spend a lot of time together?" Ilehana asked.  
  
"Are Logan's sideburns dodgy?" Blaze replied, incensced like fire in a breeze that it might not all be over. Gambit clarified things matter-of- fact-ly. "Down each other's throats all night, Chere."  
  
"Cyclops, Storm, track down Havoc and this girl and bring them back to the mansion. Even if Sian is not the source of the virus, its possible both have contracted it and are passing it on." Xavier took charge irrefutably. "Matthew, can you use your connections to find out what is happening on Hawaii?" Matthew nodded his agreement. "Everyone else, Hank has given you your instructions. Dismissed."  
  
Just like that the meeting was over, chairs scraped back and the X-Men leapt into action. Glad to have something to do, Matthew instantly began attacking the phonebook in his mobile. Heroes the X-Men maybe, but he wasn't about to stand by and leave it all to them if there was a chance he could help.  
  
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Last thing at night, he made the call. The shadowy man kept the details brief, knowing she wouldn't have much patience else wise. Suffice to say, things were moving exactly as they should be. The world was at their feet; soon mutants would be no more... 


	11. 11

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.  
  
Scene 11  
  
Day 04, Thursday.........  
  
Mercury awoke dripping in sweat, tangled in her sheets in the darkness of the early hours. They were coming! Her hands grasped out blindly, metal in the room flying through the air to form knives in her hands, sharp ones that glinted in the low light. She sat, blades poised, upright in bed, breath gasping and fear creasing her brow. What's that noise! Her nerves were on fire, but nothing happened. Eyes wide and dilated, Mercury waited out the night with only her knives for company or comfort. By morning they had formed themselves so completely into her hands it took another hour to wrangle herself free before she collapsed, exhausted, but too wired to sleep.  
  
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"Its Hawaii on the line for you, Director."  
  
"Put them through." Seymour demanded.  
  
"Sir?" A new, rather nervous voice on the other end of the line. "The President's daughter's two friends are dead."  
  
"Very well." He'd been expecting it would be so since yesterday evening's report.  
  
"There's something else." The man in Hawaii cut in. "Before the second one died, something very strange happened."  
  
"Well?" Seymour asked, "What?"  
  
"She... She shot bony spikes, from all over her body, nearly brought down the building. The doctors can't explain it."  
  
"A mutant." Seymour concluded, scowling as he slammed down the phone. He'd barely moved his hand away before it rang again. "What!"  
  
"I a told we have been successful in easing some of your headaches, Director." The familiar voice of the ominous stranger came over the line. "Imagine the scandal, the President's daughter friends with mutants? And now it is not something you have to fret over."  
  
"What is it?" Seymour asked, glancing about himself nervously for no apparent reason.  
  
"A virus, an orally transmitted disease that must travel in liquid and is completely harmless to humans. But, as you see, if in the first few hours of its release it is introduced to a mutant... Well, the effects speak for themselves."  
  
"How? Where did it come from? What exactly are you offering me?"  
  
"One question at a time, Director." Was the man on the line actually amused? "How it kills I will leave for your government experts to decipher. Where did it come from? From nature of course, a naturally mutated virus for a naturally mutated problem. Discovered quite by accident when a small African mutant child, the only mutant in her village, was bitten by one of a population of infected mosquitoes. Saliva, it seems, is quite the agent of dispersal; mosquito saliva into the girl. But I digress. What am I offering you? Nothing but the chance to wipe out all the mutants, not in a single village, town, city, not even the United States, but in the whole world..."  
  
"What!" Seymour exclaimed, "You want me to buy this stuff off you so I can commit the biggest genocide in the history of mankind?"  
  
"Genocide? Why no. It is as I said; this is no laboratory creation with signatures of human interference. There can be no way to trace this back to you or your seniors, Director. Just as there will be no mutants left to kick up a fuss."  
  
"Its not my decision." Seymour replied, his voice catching in his throat. This man made it all sound so simple.  
  
"Of course not." The man chimed pleasantly. "Tell the President the price is ten billion dollars up front, and another ten when the task is completed."  
  
"You'll cripple the country!" Seymour exclaimed over the amount.  
  
"No," The shadow man replied. "I will free the world."  
  
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"Sam!"  
  
The stylishly spiky-haired teenager cut her conversation off suddenly, turning with her bunch of classmates to see who'd called out her name. Sam Hawley went through hair cuts like the rest of the world went through loaves of bread, but her green eyes always had that same slightly despairing look about them. Matthew winced as his boss' daughter put her hands on he hips and pouted.  
  
"What Matt? We're late for our blood tests already."  
  
"Matthew, not Matt." He pointed out, not that it would make any difference. "Look, you used to know pretty much everybody under the age of twenty-one in Washington..."  
  
"You mean before they found out I was a mutant and likewise pretty much ostracised me? Yeah, I knew everyone, literally."  
  
"Even the President's kids? His daughter especially?"  
  
"Kara? Yeah, I mean, she wasn't in my crowd especially, but I knew her alright."  
  
"Great!" Matthew exclaimed, wheeling the teenager away from her friends. "Tell Ilehana I'll drop in with Sam later, I just need to borrow her."  
  
"What's going on?" Sam moaned dramatically.  
  
"There's a possible connection between Colossus being ill and something that's happened to Kara's friends on Hawaii."  
  
"They've gone to Hawaii without me! This sucks! I was supposed to be on that trip!" Sam groaned.  
  
"Focus, Sam." Matthew ordered. "I've been trying all morning to find out what's going on, but nobody's talking. So I need you to ring Kara for me, okay? I presume you've got her number?"  
  
"Alright, alright." Sam replied, "But if I'm phoning Hawaii for you, you're picking up my mobile bill this month."  
  
"I don't even want to know what the catch is, Shockwave." Matthew answered. "I'll pay, but just get on with it, will you?"  
  
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"Come in!" Lance called, routing through a filing cabinet with his back to the door. He couldn't even remember what it was he'd been looking for; this place was such a state.  
  
"Thank you." A vaguely familiar, feminine voice touched with a dangerous undercurrent of steel replied. "Lets see if I can remember how an interrogation is supposed to go. I say, you have some answers I want, and then you say..."  
  
"Mercury?" Lance gasped, shutting the filing cabinet draw with a clang.  
  
"It's a start I suppose," Mercury continued as if talking to herself, eyes glazed over and not entirely focused. "Though I suppose you're not used to being on the wrong side of an interrogation, are you mister policeman? It's an enlightening experience, I can tell you. So, lets try again. Why are they after me?"  
  
"What? Who?"  
  
"Blaze, Gambit, Electra, you... Why can't you just leave me be? Have I not done enough, being locked up for eight years?" Her voice rising as she spoke, Eloise propped her knuckles on the desk and leaned in towards Lance. The human's eyes widened as the assorted metal paperclips, staples, pen and bit and bobs started to liquidise, running across the desk's surface to be nearer Mercury. "Why wont all this just go away!"  
  
"Nobody is after you, Eloise." Lance tried to remain calm, aware that the metal of his wedding ring was trickling away down his finger. His wife was going to kill him. "It has all gone away..."  
  
"No!" Mercury screamed; pushing off the desk as the metal suddenly turned on its former owner, ribbons of metal going for his throat. "You'll tell me where they are! You'll tell me everything!" 


	12. 12

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars. Witness references from Corrinth's Guardians of Destiny, which is mega cool, so go drop it a review!  
  
Scene 12  
  
Colossus died with his friends, his family around him. The relief from the pain was instantaneous, tempting, but he hung on that brink between life and death knowing he had so much more to say. He wanted to tell them all so much, how much they meant to him, how glad he was to have known them, loved each and every one of them. He would always watch over them, always. But as he hovered above his broken body, the last threads of his mortal existence scattered to the wind, he knew that if he knew he was a Witness, it was already too late to tell them...  
  
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"Is there anything I can do?" Blaze enquired of Ilehana after the redhead had received her all clear, along with Gambit, in the infirmary. There was an immense amount of work facing Ilehana and Hank, for even with Colossus gone they still could not rule out the possibility that more of the school's inhabitants might be infected. Not only did they need to know if anyone was, but also the need for a cure was almost suffocating in its urgency. Ilehana's reply was cut short though by Matthew and Sam's arrival in the infirmary.  
  
"Kara, the President's daughter, says her friends have died too." Sam was trying hard to be at her most mature, handing over what notes she'd took whilst on the phone to Vixen. "I've written down everything she told me, their symptoms, everything... What their powers were..."  
  
"They were mutants?" Ilehana asked sharply.  
  
"Yeah, the only two on the trip apparently." Matthew answered this time. "Not that many people knew, or the President's daughter wouldn't be allowed to hang around with them no doubt."  
  
"Looks like this time Dad's big mouth has saved me." Sam hadn't been slow to realise this. "If we hadn't announced I was a mutant, I would have been dead by now too. Excuse me." The senator's daughter left the room, obviously upset, leaving the adults wondering how well she'd known the deceased members of the Hawaii party?  
  
"I'd really appreciate a hand Blaze." Ilehana finally confirmed. "Grab yourself a lab coat and gloves okay?"  
  
"I thought you were a linguist Blaze?" Matthew asked inquisitively. "Are you trained in the sciences as well?"  
  
"Err, no, to put it mildly." Blaze replied with a slight smile. "But I can follow instructions..."  
  
"Since when?" Gambit chipped in, folding his arms and leaning on a work surface.  
  
"Since you stopped giving them, Rem." Blaze laughed.  
  
"When did he give you instructions, Blaze?" Matthew asked, now completely confused. The more time he spent around the X-Men, the more he realised he knew very little about any of them. A realisation amplified around Blaze and Gambit, he knew they'd known each other before coming to the mansion, but more than that he could not decipher. For a moment Blaze looked like she was going to give him a long-winded answer, but as if remembering something, she turned her back on the politician and began working.  
  
"It's a long story." Was all she'd say, "Catch you later Remy?"  
  
"Sure, Little One." Gambit replied, quite happy to be leaving. Trench coats were one thing, lab coats totally another. "Bonne chance."  
  
Matthew followed just long enough after so as not to be stepping on Gambit's coat tails. Ilehana was pouring over Sam's notes, whilst Blaze prepped more samples under Vixen's instructions. Not much later, Hank was back with the last of the student's samples, and with Storm returned, mission 'reclaim Havoc' successfully completed, the lab was in full working order. All they needed now, Vixen thought grimly, was one of Nightcrawler's miracles.  
  
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Blaze took a break a good while later, convinced she'd be seeing test tubes in her sleep. She was starved, her hypermetabolism a constant reminder of her power's need for fuel, so she headed to the kitchen. With any luck, there would still be some ice cream left...  
  
Her mobile rang just as she opened the freezer. She didn't usually bother with the pesky devices these days; she lost them far too often, not being a tidy person. But sometimes they were a necessity. And this was a call she'd been dreading. She didn't bother with the ice cream, just shut the freezer and answered the call.  
  
"Hello Studd, what have you got for me?"  
  
"Bad news, hot stuff." The male voice at the other end offered. "She got to him, he's dead."  
  
"No!" Blaze slammed her fist into the door of the fridge in anger and pain.  
  
"Wasn't pleasant either," Studd carried on regardless. "She wanted somethin' from him pretty bad, and by the state of his office, I'd say she tore it outta him... Still, one less cop right?"  
  
"Shut you mouth Studd! Where is she now?"  
  
"On her way to our neck of the woods, last one of my bugs picked her up." Studd was a technical wizard, expert at tracking and bugging, hacking into security systems across the world all from the comfort of his Boston apartment. Which was why Blaze had had him keep his ear on Lance. But she'd hoped she was just being paranoid nonetheless. Fat chance of that... "Which brings me to my point, Blaze. Lookin' at what Mercury did to your ex, I'm cashin' in now before she gets here."  
  
"How much?" Blaze asked, not blaming him for wanting payment before she too had a run in with Eloise. Time was she'd have done the same.  
  
"Don't want money, Blaze and you know it. Some people I know are interested to find out what one of their business associates has been up too, on the side if you like, with their biggest rival. The database is called Topaz; you'll find it in New York, high-rise on 23rd and 8th. Email me. And good luck."  
  
Blaze pocketed the phone again and shook her head. Blackmail. Lance was dead and she was reduced to getting blackmail material for Studd in return for that knowledge. Add to that Mercury intent on some serious revenge, not to mention the whole virus thing... This was just not turning out a good day.  
  
"What are you up to Blaze?" Blaze turned sharply, she'd no idea how long Matthew had been stood in the doorway.  
  
"Nothing." She replied automatically, giving up on the idea of food anytime soon. She needed to get this information for Studd before anything else happened. Last thing she needed was Studd's more muscular 'associates' coming down on her and the X-Men for unpaid debts.  
  
"Liar." Matthew pointed out, standing in her way in the doorway.  
  
"And that from the politician..." Blaze smiled, melting Matthew's resolve a little.  
  
"You're not in some sort of trouble are you?" He asked, troubled.  
  
"Nothing I can't handle." Blaze picked her moment and walked past him. "But I appreciate your concern."  
  
"Could have fooled me." Matthew muttered, not sure if Blaze heard him or not. His fumbling fingers found his mobile in his pocket, a brief scan through the phone book and without thinking he was calling an old college buddy with his mind made up.  
  
"Mark Borchardt." The voice on the other end of the line was businesslike, and Matthew knew he'd made the right choice. If there was something going on here, his friend in the CIA would figure it out, and Matthew could approach Blaze to help so clued in she couldn't refuse his offer so easily.  
  
"Hey Mark, its Matthew. I'm calling in that favour you owe me..." 


	13. 13

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.  
  
Scene 13  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"Sian has the virus, Alex." Scott counselled his brother. "The same one that's killed two of the President's daughter's friends in Hawaii, the same one she passed on to Colossus..."  
  
"Am I gonna die too?" Sian asked, glancing from Scott to Hank McCoy, desperate to know.  
  
"No, Sian." Hank consoled her. "The virus has had no effect on you whatsoever. It only affects mutants."  
  
"The question is," Xavier asked slowly. "Is it a chance occurrence, or is there some darker motive at work here?"  
  
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Well, at least she hadn't lost her touch. In and out of the building and its computer systems inside an hour. Not as fast as she used to be, but Blaze could live with that. She tucked the Aston Martin back in the garage, blocking in Cyclops' car without even noticing it. Now to get the data and the encryption files to Studd. Course, if she was playing this properly, she should sent the data and point out she'd never agreed to send the encryption key, making Studd pay her for them. But today she just couldn't be bothered.  
  
Back in the lower levels, she booted up a couple of PCs, took her time making sure her emails couldn't be traced. Blaze wouldn't have relied on the X-Men's technology, but it was so good she couldn't pass up the security it offered her. One computer she set splitting up, attaching and emailing the database automatically, whilst she used another to prepare the encryption files. She was so caught up in what she was doing; she didn't know she wasn't alone until a strong hand rested on her shoulder.  
  
"Oh, its you." She frowned at Gambit, pushing the wheelie chair away from him to the first computer, leaving the second one working.  
  
"You bin breakin' in places without me?" He asked, instantly recognising what Blaze was up to. "Why?"  
  
"You'd only slow me down, Rem, and you know it." Blaze teased, deliberately not answering his question or meeting his eyes.  
  
"What's goin' on Blaze?" He demanded, getting in her way again as she scooted back to where she'd started. He grabbed the arms of the chair, stopping her dead and making her look at him. "You gonna tell me? Or you not trust me no more?"  
  
"Don't be..." Blaze began defensively, before sighing and standing up, Remy's hands taking the top of her arms protectively. "Of course I trust you." She started again, "I always have. But nothing was certain until today, I didn't want to worry you if I was just being paranoid."  
  
"You worry me permanently, Petite." He replied; taking her left hand and turning it palm upwards to trace the cuts there. Blaze bit her lip as she watched his hand on hers; she'd hurt him again. Even if she hadn't wanted to, now she had to tell him everything.  
  
"Lance phoned me from South Africa whilst you were on your mission with Ilehana. Mercury has been released, and he thought I should know, just in case. So, just in case, I got in touch with Studd and had him keep tabs on Lance. I didn't really think anything would happen, but it did. I got the call today that Lance is dead..."  
  
"Dead?" Remy repeated, frowning, looking right into Blaze's soul with those eyes... "Eloise got to him? Why?"  
  
"I don't know, I don't know how her mind works. But Studd thinks that Mercury tortured Lance before she killed him, and Lance knew where we were. She's on her way, Remy. All this," She waved her hand at the computers, "Is just me paying my debts to Studd for at least giving me some warning."  
  
"I'se take it he didn't just want cash?" Blaze smiled at that, Gambit knew these people as well as she did. Not better, as he often thought he did, but as equally as well. "Why..." Gambit started, letting Blaze go at last to one of the computers, settling to talk to her back. "Why you doin' this by yourself? You t'ink it coverin' up those scars, you sortin' all this? You t'ink it ain't gonna knock you back again? You t'ink..."  
  
"No, Rem, as a rule I don't think." Blaze half-snapped. "Why don't you trust me for once, I know what I'm doing and I know I can handle this. I'm not hiding behind you..."  
  
"No, then I be some use to you, Chere. You jus' pushin' me away... Again..."  
  
"That's not true! I just told you everything didn't I?" Blaze spun back round to face him, eyes flashing angry. "What the hell do you want from me? I'm not good enough when I'm a broken wreck who can't face her own bedroom, and I'm even worse when I start doing things for myself again!"  
  
Gambit stormed out at that, wishing there was a door in the lower levels that he could slam in frustration. Call him juvenile, but this wasn't an argument he was going to let slide. He hoped the Professor was holdin' up okay, this sure was turnin' out to be one heck of a day.  
  
Not five minutes later, Blaze was shutting down the computers, debt paid, when she realised exactly what Remy had gone and done. Why did he have to be so irritating? Didn't he know that today really wasn't the day for this! Xavier had enough to worry about without refereeing one of their arguments, let alone dealing with the whole vengeful Mercury thing!  
  
#Blaze; come to my office right away. #  
  
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Jubilee sat tearless and cold by Colossus' bedside, hating that his body might lie alone even for a little while. The rest of the mansion whirled on around her, all the inhabitants busy running around like headless chickens. Had no one told them Colossus had stopped breathing? Had no one told them he'd died? How could they be so cold, so callous? Was this virus threat any more terrifying than her friend already having died?  
  
"I..." A small, shy voice made Jubilee look up and around. The bed holding Colossus was screened off in a corner of the bright infirmary, Jubilee's mourning protected from the bustling industry of Ilehana's microbiology lab. She could almost have been alone with the empty shell that had been brave Peter, up until Sian arrived, escorted by Havoc and Iceman. "I just wanted to say... To say how sorry I am..."  
  
"Bitch." Jubilee swore, putting herself protectively between Colossus' body and the other girl. Her voice was cold and hard, Jubilee's hands tingling with her mutant power. "You killed him."  
  
"I didn't know, I didn't mean to, I..." Sian spoke quickly; tears falling haphazardly form her long eyelashes.  
  
"Its okay, Sian, Jubilee doesn't mean it..." Bobby interjected.  
  
"Don't I?" Jubilee turned on her friends aggressively. "Don't any of you get it? Peter's dead! And he wouldn't be if she hadn't kissed him, or if I..."  
  
"Jubes?" Havoc started forwards as Jubilee began to cry too, but she held up her hands, threatening her power.  
  
"If I hadn't made him come out with us, he didn't want to go, I made him... And now he's dead and it's my fault! It's all my fault!" Jubilee stumbled, hands flying to her face, as Bobby and Alex caught her.  
  
"Its time to leave him, Jubilee." Bobby counselled. "He's gone, come on, its time to go..." Jubilee nodded, and allowed herself to be lead from the infirmary. Sian reached over and took the blanket that covered Colossus up to his chest, shook out the folds, and covered his face. She was struck by how at ease he looked, in death so beautifully calm.  
  
"Rest in peace, Peter..." 


	14. 14

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.  
  
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.  
  
Scene 14  
  
"You are such a..."  
  
"Mind your mouth, Petite." Gambit warned Blaze as she entered the office. "I'se only tryin' to watch your back. You wont let me do that; you know I gotta go over your head. You'd do the same if was other way round, wouldn't you?"  
  
"Sometimes you make too much sense for your own good. Not often mind, but occasionally." Blaze ceded defeat and sat, before turning to the exhausted looking telepath. "How you coping Professor?"  
  
"As well as can be expected." Xavier replied slowly, watching both his X- Men with hawk like eyes. "Gambit's told me a little, Blaze, but I'd like to hear the whole story. Who is this Mercury? What did she do to get put in prison for so long?" He asked calmly, despite how it made both his X-Men squirm in their seats. Blaze and Gambit looked at each other, and he nodded, let her tell the story. She'd probably put him in a better light then he would anyway.  
  
"Mercury, Eloise, and Gambit dated years ago. She was a thief, same as us, and she and I were good friends. I introduced them." Blaze frowned and tugged at her curls, remembering. "They lasted six months, which was impressive..." Gambit folded his arms defensively and pouted, making Blaze shoot him a teasing grin. "Well, its true. Anyway it was getting way too serious, so he decided to break it off, am I right?"  
  
"Yeah." Gambit leant back in his chair, trying to look nonchalant and succeeding at looking tortured.  
  
"Or rather, he asked me to do it for him so it wouldn't seem so harsh. Stupid as I am, I didn't argue. Somehow Mercury got it in her head that he was dumping her because of me, maybe it was the way I passed on the message or something."  
  
"More like the message you passed on, Chere." Gambit pointed out. "You weren't exactly easy on her."  
  
"Well, I was to start with, but then she kept me there all night, trying to find out why it hadn't worked out and slowly both of us getting seriously drunk. I wont hide the fact that I lost my temper with her. I told her it had all been just a laugh for him, and that she should get over herself. Suddenly she went very quiet, scarily so. A few moments, and she pulled a silver key out of her pocket, put it on the table and used her mutant powers to turn it into the belly button bar I wore for years. She said if she ever saw me again, she would kill me. Then she left. We met up with her again in Cape Town, South Africa. When she heard we had moved there, she..."  
  
"She went through with her threat." Gambit sat forward in his chair again and met the Professor's eyes. "Middle of a nightclub, she melts everythin' metal in sight, an' throws it all at Blaze. It ain't just random when she does that. She can force it down your throat, literally." Xavier glanced at Blaze, noting how she shuddered, sensing her fear as she thought about it.  
  
"How did you survive?" Xavier asked slowly, carefully. He didn't want to trigger Blaze into another spate of overloading memories.  
  
"My ex-boyfriend, the police officer, saw it coming and pushed me out of the way. Gave me a few seconds, long enough for Gambit and Electra to stop it at the source." Blaze shot her best friend a look of gratitude, which he acknowledged with a nod. "She's been in jail there ever since."  
  
"Until now." Xavier finished. "I'll go and use Cerebro, see if I can't get through to Mercury and suggests she changes her mind."  
  
"You can do that?" Gambit asked, frowning slightly, not having the highest opinion of telepaths.  
  
"For the safety of my X-Men, I can do most things Gambit." Xavier cautioned; pointing out that this was no lightly made offer. Gambit nodded, whilst Blaze opened the office door for her boss. "I suggest," Xavier continued on his way out, "That the two of you have a good long chat about what being an X-Man means to you both..."  
  
"Ouch." Blaze muttered as she shut the door behind Xavier. "Guess that's one way to put me in my place..." Gambit could only agree, before Blaze's next words alarmed him. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this after all. And even if it was only for an hour or so, and in terrible circumstances, today I've felt more like me than I have in a long time. Who am I if not a thief?"  
  
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"How are you holding up Hank?" Scott asked quietly, somehow in awe of the slow bleeping of the machinery, the soft bustle of science. Hank paused, pipette poised in hand, and sighed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his furry nose with the back of his other hand.  
  
"There is a small fathom of comfort to be found in the familiar mechanisms and protocols one has grown used to. Perhaps you will rightly think less of me for putting it like this, but this virus is a mystery occurring just as I need a mystery to unravel, to remind myself of just who I am."  
  
"I don't think any less of you," Cyclops was quick to point out. "I understand what you're saying. When things are bad, the most normal stuff can be a big help, y'know?" Scott paused, considering. "And maybe I've been talking to Kurt too much, but have you thought about it the other way? Maybe what's happened to you was just in time, so you'd be here when the X- Men needed you?"  
  
"An interesting thought," Hank smiled, "But surely the Professor could have just called me?"  
  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "Vixen, you gotta minute?"  
  
"Sure Gambit what's..."  
  
"No she don't, Cajun." Wolverine snapped, "She needs a break, not more of your messes to sort out."  
  
"I'm fine Logan." Ilehana protested. "I'll meet you in the kitchen, mine's a bacon sandwich okay?"  
  
"Don't be long." Wolverine warned, brooding eyes flicking from Ilehana to Gambit and back again before storming off.  
  
"Phew." Ilehana commented, "I was sure he was going to make some really bad joke about slicing our bacon then or something..."  
  
"Wolverine right, Chere, you bin in the lab too long..." Gambit risked a grin, before dropping it just as quickly. "You sure you okay?"  
  
"Don't you start, Gambit." Ilehana warned, blue eyes flashing. "Spill."  
  
"It Blaze." He stated obviously. "She bin out thievin' again, long story why but sounds like she enjoy herself. She need some sense talkin' into her before she goes do somethin' stupid, an' I ain't getting' through..."  
  
"Dad and I were expecting that she might try something like that, Gambit." Ilehana spoke sagely, "Blaze is just trying to work out who she is again, and she'll get through it with time."  
  
"Time ain't somethin' she got." Gambit replied. "We think somebody after her, maybe me too, but if Blaze quits on us, how we gonna protect her? The Professor in Cerebro, tryin' to make it safe, but Blaze is thinkin' 'bout leavin' now, not waitin' to hear what he says."  
  
"Alright, Gambit I'll..." A sudden grimace of pain shot across Ilehana's face, and she cried out, falling to her knees. Gambit lurched forward to grab his friend, confused. "Dad!" Ilehana cried. "I have to get to Cerebro!" 


	15. 15

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 15 

Xavier pulled on the Cerebro helmet resolutely, hearing the doors to the large, round room sluicing shut behind him. His fingers tapped the console in front of him briefly, before he concentrated. Suddenly, like an explosion of galaxies, the room was gone and replaced with the twinkling lights of all the lives on the planet. Red and white, mutant and human, all so temptingly close for him to just reach out and brush with his consciousness, learn their secrets, learn who they were...

He pulled himself back from the brink, from the longing to throw himself into the current of his power and forget everything but the joy of telepathy. And he longed, stood on that brink as he was, for just once, one of the dancing lights in front of him to recognise that he stood there, to show him just the faintest signs of recognition. But they never did, he was a witness only, watching them come and go in their tangled lives.

Who was he looking for? A young woman, twenty-seven years old, a mutant who used the name Mercury, her real name was Eloise Finnegan. Each time he thought, more of the lights died away, drifting out of his reckoning. When only a small handful of twenty-seven year old mutant women stood before him, he searched her out. He could recognise her by sight, from the images he'd been given by Blaze and Gambit, though the different ways each of his X-Men saw her intrigued Xavier.

Gambit remembered the girl he'd dated; long, curvaceous form, sleek hair, and full lips. Blaze saw someone older than herself, not just in years but also in knowledge and experience. Blaze remembered the sad, knowing glint in Mercury's eyes of someone who had been in the criminal world too long. Xavier wondered if Blaze had realised she occasionally wore that same look herself? So, the Professor realised with a little shock, someone Blaze had not only liked, but also looked up to, almost a surrogate sister as the teenaged English girl had begun her career as a thief under Gambit's tuition, before Gambit even met Mercury...

Suddenly all the other women disappeared, leaving one stood alone. Steely grey eyes looked right at him from behind long grey-black hair. He reached out to Mercury, ever so gently, tugged at by the emotions and stresses she was feeling. He'd never reach her with his barriers so high. They fell away, his defences, and instantly he was inside of Mercury's mind, looking out at the world as she saw it.

He gasped with the pain, the madness, tugged off the Cerebro helmet and reached out to the only one he knew would hear him.

#ILEHANA! #

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The doors had slid open as Vixen skidded around the corner of the corridor and flung herself towards her father. Gambit and Kurt weren't far behind, then suddenly the teleporter had Vixen by the arm, and they were stood right by Xavier. His head lolled slightly, his eyes open but unseeing until Ilehana put a hand to his shoulder and he sat bolt upright.

"Get away from me! What do you want! Who are you people! Arrrgh!"

#Dad. # Ilehana called to him inside his head, #Dad, its okay, its alright... #

"Thank you..." Xavier stumbled over his reply, eyes focusing once again. "Thank you..." His gratefulness worried Ilehana, but she wouldn't mention it as she crouched down to meet his eyes.

"What did you see?" She asked gently, seeing the shudder gush through his body as he thought about it.

"Not much... It was more what I felt. Fear, hatred and all consuming paranoia. One thing is certain; Mercury is not sane... And neither is she far away."

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"We're up Logan." Ilehana appeared in the kitchen to find the most beautifully tempting bacon sandwich she had ever seen about to be devoured completely by a bored looking Logan. Vixen winced as he paused, the sandwich millimetres from his open mouth, one rasher slipping out of the bread to slap back onto the plate. What a waste. Sheesh, she was starting to sound like Blaze!

"What do you mean, we're up?" Logan asked, putting the sandwich down. "What am I missing?"

"A fight if you don't get a move on." Vixen didn't think she'd ever seen Wolverine move so fast.

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Kurt nodded sombrely to Ilehana, and smiled to let her know the Professor would be well cared for. Ilehana nodded and climbed aboard her motorbike. Gambit and Logan had already started their engines, a rough chorus of power Vixen was only too happy to join in. Jamming the helmet over her blonde ponytail, she raised her gloved hand to signal it was time to move out...

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Blaze was instantly suspicious when she heard the bikes roaring down the drive. A mission? With no briefing? And today, with all of this going on? Something about this was fishy...

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The docks were busy, but behind the collection of warehouses and equipment, away from the sea front, a stillness and mist had settled. Ilehana wished she'd brought Storm, the clammy sea fog distorting her usually keen senses, set against a backdrop of the setting sun. They grounded the bikes, abandoning them to continue on foot. Nobody said anything, Logan sniffing the sea air to try and get a hint to their quarry. Ilehana quested with her telepathy, and had a little more success.

#This way. # She told her teammates telepathically, taking the lead. Logan let Gambit follow first, taking the time to allow his claws to slip through his gloves. The metal alloy glinted in the misty light.

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"They've gone where!" Blaze was outraged that the X-Men were fighting her battles for her. Eyes smouldering she turned her back on Kurt and the Professor, headed straight for the garage and her car.

"I can't let you go Blaze, you are too involved." Xavier cautioned, his voice weak with exhaustion and sick with worry.

"No?" She turned back to him briefly, her firepower dancing around her. "You let Gambit go."

"He's not been ill, Blaze..." Kurt pointed out, pleading.

"Neither have I." Blaze was adamant, turning her back on her friends again. "And if fighting my own battles is going to cost me my place with the X-Men, then so be it."

She slammed the office door loudly, making Nightcrawler flinch. Xavier sighed deeply, head drooping, emotionally, mentally and physiologically exhausted.

"Professor?" Kurt asked gently, putting a three-fingered hand on Xavier's sagging shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"I think..." Professor Xavier began, "I think I need to go to the infirmary..."

Kurt's eyes bulged with shock; he gaped with worry as Xavier floated past him into an exhausted unconsciousness...


	16. 16

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 16 

Logan, Remy and Ilehana stalked through the docklands like predators, searching for any clue that Mercury might have passed this way. And all the time, Wolverine could not shake the humming in his bones, and that horrible sensation that they were being watched.

The metal in the docks was hers to command, it ran from bulkheads, leaving holes through which water began to seep to sink great hulks of vessels. It dripped from cranes and vehicles, running in rivulets over the dirty ground to join with more metal from pins and casings, structural girders and abandoned waste. Always, she was careful not to take too much from one source, not to alert anyone to her presence. Always she kept one eye on her quarry, knowing they thought themselves the hunters here. It irked her that Blaze had not come for her herself, but in the end it didn't matter. It was enough to know she had been right. Her paranoia, her metallic nature of suspicion and unrest may well have saved her life. It would cost them theirs.

She raised a hand, feeling the temptation of metal where there should have been none. What black magic was this? A man with metal claws? And more than that, metal through his whole body, metal like she had never felt before, singing to her with a low hum as he walked below her. She stood on the edge of a great concrete pillar that supported the freeway flyover, ignorant of the cars passing behind her, but aware of their potential as weapons if she needed them. She would not need them for him.

Wolverine stopped dead in his tracks, lifting his hands and claws, a look of confusion crossing his face. The metal in front of him slowly began to change, its texture softening, glistening, like ice when melting. And then he screamed, dropping to his side and roaring his agony. Gambit and Ilehana spun around on the spot, just in time to see Logan's claws bending back around in new and contorted patterns, tying themselves in knots, stretching and unravelling. Gambit could only imagine what Mercury was doing to Logan's metal-infused bones. Why hadn't they realised this before bringing him on this mission!

Ilehana didn't even make it to her partner's side, the metal that had been sneaking up behind them suddenly binding her wrists, ankles, waist and throat, anywhere it could get a grip. She struggled, trying to employ her shape changing ability to weaken the bonds. Instead she felt her bones crunch under the stress of the metal, tried for a smaller sized creature than a bear in the hope of wriggling free. Vixen began to take a wolf form, but too slowly so Mercury had time to compensate. Gambit tried to run to her aid, to blast away the metal that bound her, but metal grabbed him too. Desperate, he was forced to apply his power to the bonds around his own chest and ankles, the explosion knocking the breath out of him and sending him gasping to his knees. It was just the chance to finish him that Mercury was looking for.

Out of nowhere came the roar of a powerful car engine. Mercury barely glanced around at the thunderous noise, before she took a hasty double take at the silver-grey Aston Martin DB7 GT racing towards her like a nightmare, a possessed demon creation. Mercury abandoned her attack on those below in the docks as she realised belatedly that the car was not driving past her; it was aiming straight for her, through the crash barrier at her and then over the edge of the flyover. There was only one person she knew crazy enough to drive like that. Blaze.

Teeth gritted, barely acknowledging the Speedo maxing out, or the screeching traffic around her, Blaze's eyes focused only on one thing. Mercury was responsible for the death of one man she'd cared for, she was not going to get the chance to repeat the event. The engine throbbed as Blaze held the revs high, sliding in towards the Armco barrier along the outside edge of the flyover. Nothing below her but the docks, and they were a very long way down... Blaze didn't notice, squinting through her sunglasses as the setting sun glinted off the swell of the sea and the sheen of the car bonnet.

With a crunch, the car sliced into the barrier, sparks and paintwork flew, and then the car was airborne and twisting into a sideways roll. Mercury screamed, a metallic scream like a nail on a blackboard as she raised her hand to try and stop the approaching car. But there simply wasn't as much metal as she needed to compensate for the speed. Even as the engine fused, she knew she was not going to be able to stop the car. Blaze recognised the moment when the engine gave up under Mercury's power, eyes hazy and red she flung her own mutation into action. In the second the car tumbled upside down, carried by its own momentum over the barrier and towards Eloise, the petrol tank caught fire.

Gambit and company looked up as they were released from Mercury's clutches, just in time to see Mercury caught by a speeding car that was dreadfully familiar. Blaze! She was going to kill herself! Flames were everywhere, Gambit lost sight of Mercury as she was flung from the flyover into space. And then the Aston Martin was falling, still tumbling upside down, caught in a wheel of flame, to land with a crash on its roof on the docks not too far away. A second later, the car exploded from the inside out, showering the whole area in shattered carbon fibre and glass. The explosion flung the X-Men backwards, the heat baking the dirt and smoke from the burning fuel to them. There was no sign of Mercury... Or of Blaze...

"You okay Logan?" Ilehana gasped, brushing her bedraggled hair out of her face and trying not to notice the torn state of her uniform. Shape shifting in clothes was not a good idea, not that she'd had chance to change. He nodded his reply, kneeling back to lean on his heels, wincing as he examined his claws. They seemed straight enough now... Hesitantly he pulled them back, and then extended them again. It seemed the pain he was feeling was only the same as usual. Slowly he shook his head, trying to get a grip on what had just happened, but he felt it might just take a while...

Gambit just stood there. For a moment at least he stood exactly still and watched Blaze's precious car burn. Or what was left of it. Blaze could survive any fire without getting even blistered. But the car was a total insurance write-off, an achievement in itself given how much it was worth. There was no way anybody inside that car could have lived through that impact. The car was crushed by its own weight, unrecognisable as the beautiful machine it had been. And Blaze had been driving it...

"No..." He ran forwards, guarding his face from the sheer volcanic heat with his arm. But the car wasn't done exploding, forcing him back the second he got anywhere near close. "NO!"

"Gambit, don't!" Ilehana grabbed his shoulder, tugging him back. "If she was in there, there's nothing you can do..."

"She might be hurt! She might be..." He gasped, fighting Ilehana's grip.

"There is no-one alive in that car, Remy." Ilehana told him more forcefully than she meant to. "Don't get yourself hurt."

"Hey, we gotta live one!" Logan called out suddenly. Both X-Men spun and sprinted to Wolverine's side. But it was Mercury, not Blaze, who lay on her back on the ground. "Looks like some of these crates broke her fall, but she's unconscious."

"We need to get her back to the mansion." Dr Xavier decreed, assessing her newest patient deftly. "She's not in too bad a way, considering, but her shoulder's dislocated and her left arm broken at least once. I wouldn't doubt she's bleeding internally too. I'm going to call Scott and ask him to bring the jet..." Logan just nodded, eyes drifting to where Gambit was storming away in revulsion.

"Want me to go after him?"

"No, leave him." Ilehana advised carefully. "Just watch he doesn't do anything stupid." Her eyes glazed over as she reached out to the mansion. Logan stood and folded his arms across his chest, hawk-like eyes observing Gambit critically. Still the car burned. Sirens troubled the very edge of his supersensitive hearing, the hubbub on the freeway after Blaze's crash a buzzing irritation. Logan's stomach churned at the smell of the burning fuel. The Firefly might just have saved their lives, but the cost was way too high...

In cold fury Gambit wrenched a packing crate into his hands, feeling his muscles tear with the action and not caring. He charged it with his power, the whole object glowing orange and brilliant, roared his grief as he launched it away from him to explode near the car, sending the flames flickering with the force of the new blast. It couldn't be! Blaze could not be dead! She's not dead, damn it! She can't be... Can she...

He choked on the polluted air, gasping for breath, eyes narrow but unseeing. He couldn't tell if he was crying or not, couldn't feel anything but empty. A soft hand on his shoulder would be Ilehana, come to tell him it was time to leave. He turned angrily to tell her he wouldn't leave without Blaze.

She looked about as bad as he felt, face pale and dusted with ash, hair messy and charred around the ends. But Blaze was alive. Somehow, against all the odds, she was alive! Gambit just stood there for a second or so, unbelieving, jaw slack and unable to breathe. She protested with a small squeak as he swept her into a hug, kissing her forcefully on the lips, and then dropping her abruptly in consternation.

"What the hell was you thinkin'!" He roared, before scooping her into his arms again, unable to decide between the two courses of action. "Why, Laura? Why you do that? Idiote..."

"Couldn't let her hurt you..." Blaze mumbled into Gambit's shoulder before detaching herself and turning to look at the remains of the Aston. "My poor car... I'm so sorry... I wrote it off..."

"You damn well nearly wrote yourself off Chere!" Gambit exclaimed, grabbing her shoulders and making her face him instead of the car. "Who cares 'bout the damn car! Don't you ever, ever do anythin' like that ever again!" With each 'ever', he shook her slightly, making her frown.

"You thought I was in there?" It dawned on her slowly, as if it was the most stupid thing she'd ever heard in her life. "I got out on the freeway, it just took me a minute to climb down here, it's a bit of a drop..."

Gambit just stared at her. "A bit of a drop?" He repeated slowly, "Of all the..." but his train of foul language was masked by the sudden arrival of the X-Jet. Blaze shook her head at him, smiling as she put her hand to her ear to indicate she couldn't hear him. He scowled right back at her, up until she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him suddenly, pulling away equally quickly and legging it to Scott's chosen landing site, Gambit only a few paces behind.


	17. 17

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars. Part of this chapter is inspired by Corrinth's 'Hello, I'm still here.' Read it- its good, especially if like me you now watch the beginning of X2 and say 'There's Ilehana!' when Logan meets that wolf...

Scene 17 

"He's resting Ilehana." Hank spoke softly, eyes concerned as Vixen shrugged off his large blue hand from her shoulder. Ilehana barely heard him, eyes cold and empty as she took in the news that her father was ill. Somewhere inside of her, a small child screamed that she couldn't lose both her parents, but the Vixen could not let the child be heard. It had all happened before, Hank McCoy comforting her with such pity as her father was suffering...

She stole to the bedside, uncomfortable in the infirmary she called her own. He lay unmoving, eyes closed, the only sign that he had not followed Colossus into oblivion the slow rhythmic movement of his chest as he breathed. Inside Ilehana cried out, longing for him to turn and take her in his arms, to hold her, to promise not to leave... But he could not hear her. All she could do was lay a tentative hand on his forehead, feeling the heat there, frowning her concern. But if Charles Xavier noticed his daughter, he gave no sign of it.

"What's wrong with him?" Logan asked, voice subdued as Cyclops went to Ilehana's side, saying nothing, just standing dutifully next to her so that she knew she was not alone in her worry. Hank shook his head slowly at the spectacle before answering Logan's concerns.

"Exhaustion. Pure and simple. He does too much, spends too much of his energies keeping the mansion running smoothly despite Colossus' death. He helps as many as he can to put aside their anguish, knowing as we all do that work must be done before we can be free to grieve..."

"He was doin' all that?" Logan's brooding eyes flicked from Ilehana to Xavier, and then to Hank in time to see the Beast nod. "An' then this with gettin' inside Mercury's head..."

"The straw that broke the camel's back, my friend." Beast turned back to the infirmary's newest arrival, picking up a clipboard and frowning. "Mercury's injuries are not too bad, she will recover just fine. And her blood tests have shown some intriguing results; I have a great deal of faith that she can be helped..."

"Helped? How d'you help a psycho?" Wolverine's voice was cold, his bones still aching.

"I don't believe Mercury's madness is entirely psychological. There are interesting levels of certain chemicals in her blood..." Hank put the end of his pen in his mouth, chewing on it briefly as he thought. "If you'll excuse me Logan..."

"No problem." Wolverine replied to Hank's disappearing back, folding his arms and turning his gaze back to Ilehana, Cyclops and the Professor. #Take as long as you want, babe. # He thought decisively, #I'll be right here for you. # But if Ilehana heard him, she didn't reply.

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Blaze frowned as she climbed out of the shower, pulling on her bathrobe and heading to her room. Was it her imagination, or was there more sobbing to be heard in the mansion now than before she left? The door to Jubilee's room was open, Blaze glimpsing the Chinese-American in Bobby's arms as they both cried their grief. It was as though the Professor had been the only force shielding the mansion from a swell of suffocating fog, a dark cloud that swamped the soul. And now the mansion was unprotected, the fog descended quickly, unnaturally. An oppression of grief that stopped minds from functioning rationally and threw open all doors that kept emotions at bay.

Her hand still shook slightly as it rested on her door handle, the metal cold under her feather-light touch. Had the Professor been at work in her mind too, silently easing her fears? Was that why now she felt so raw? Or was it because she knew she had made a mistake, multiple mistakes, leading to the Professor being in that cold bed in the infirmary? Could she face this room alone?

It didn't feel like her room anymore. It was as sterile as the mansion's lower levels, carpet industrially cleaned of blood, and possessions neatly tidied away, broken items gone but not replaced. The bed was unmade, a few bits and bobs strewn where Blaze had last abandoned them, but no matter what it still wasn't her room. The fear of her own mind, her own powers, was seething just under her surface. Her only comfort was the cool summer breeze blowing in throught the open window. She could feel the night closing in, all the world's thoughts turning toward what tomorrow may bring.

As Blaze climbed into bed, exhausted beyond reason, all her thoughts turned towards the past...

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The night dragged on, Cyclops was unable to sleep, unable to rest. Unable to stay any longer by the Professor's bedside with him unmoving and Ilehana cast in adimantium, unaware of her friends. Scott had to give Logan some credit, much as it annoyed him, for sticking it out down there. Cyclops wished he'd had that strength.

He bit his lip to keep from sobbing, resting his head against the wood of his bedroom door before he could open it. The hand on Scott's shoulder then was Alex's, his brown eyes full of worry for his big brother.

"It'll be okay, Scott." Havoc offered, still slightly unsure of himself around the older man. They had been separated so long; they were still working out what it meant to be each other's brother.

"Yeah." Scott tried to sound convinced, and failed. He tried again, this time trying to believe it as well as say it. "Yeah, it will. Eventually. How's Sian holding up? Must all be pretty weird for her, and scary?"

"She's okay. Storm's taken her under her wing, and doin' a much better job of it than me." Alex followed Scott into his room, perched on a chair whilst Scott sat on the bed. "She's a tough cookie, I know she'll pull through. How's the Professor?"

"Better. We don't think it'll be long now before he'll wake up, and from there..."

"But you won't sleep easy 'til he's back to normal, will you?" Alex observed. "He's that important to you."

"He is." Scott smiled, shaking his head slightly.

"So now we wait." Havoc continued.

"Now we wait." Scott confirmed. "For the Professor to wake up, for Mercury to come round, for the virus to appear somewhere else, for our scientists to figure out a cure, for a chance to bury Colossus..."

"Hum," Alex mused seriously. "And I thought today had been a busy day..."


	18. 18

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 18 Day 05, Friday......... 

Blaze lurched bolt upright in bed as something dramatic changed in her room.

"Mercury is awake, and she's asking for you." Kurt told the redhead abruptly, before bamfing right out again through the still-closed door. Blaze shook her head, conscious of the urgency of the request if it made Kurt teleport in here to tell her. She was well aware of Nightcrawler's dislike of teleporting where he couldn't see where he was going.

Dressing quickly, Blaze was still tugging knots from her hair with her fingers as she began running down the stairs from the staff quarters. Gambit caught her up neatly; hand on the railing of the landing above he dropped a flight in a single jump to keep up the pace besides her.

"Nightcrawler?" She asked him quickly. He nodded.

"Ain't got no manners, for a saint." He grumbled. "Should've been a t'ief."

Blaze smiled shallowly at that as she swung herself around the banister at the bottom of the stairs, flinging herself toward the elevator to the lower levels. Gambit punched the button ferociously, the doors taking forever to slide closed.

"So..." The Cajun began, "Sleep well?"

"You're that annoyed at me still that you have to make polite conversation." Blaze pointed out. "Course I didn't sleep well."

"Je ne suis pas fachez." He answered, watching her avoid his gaze. "Not very annoyed anyways, Chere..."

The doors slid open, and the conversation was suspended as they entered the lower levels. Hank met them, looking refreshed after whatever sleep he'd managed to grab between caring for his patients. Instead of taking them straight in to see their old friend, he took them into a side room to explain all he could to the thieves.

"You have to understand something crucial about Mercury." He began, "I understand both of you have known her a long time, and that she was close to you both?" Hank waited as Blaze nodded, almost shyly. "Then you know she hasn't always been mad. She isn't insane at all, except when certain levels of chemicals in her blood stream reach so high a level that they, in effect, poison her... Chemicals that find their way into her by way of her close contact with heavy metal compounds..."

"Hank, we're thieves, not scientists." Blaze pointed out. "What are you saying? That Mercury's powers have sent her mad?"

"In essence, yes, exactly that. The metals she controls are so closely associated with her physiology that they enter her body, giving her heavy metal poisoning if she uses her powers too often. I believe that if she had not been in jail for so long, she would have already been dead through the simple use of the powers she sees as her own."

"Can you do anythin'?"

"I'm treating her for the poisoning along with her injuries. She has been informed as to what has happened to her, but she's finding it a little hard to understand, and the effects haven't entirely dissipated yet. I'm sure she would appreciate seeing a familiar face or two." Hank set off towards the infirmary, Blaze and Gambit shadowing his footsteps.

"Familiar faces she try an' kill off..." Gambit muttered sideways to Blaze, but the redhead wasn't listening. Already her eyes were fixed through the opening doors on her old friend, and enemy.

"Blaze, Remy..." Eloise was sat up in the bed, looking placid and pale. Hank went straight to her side, adjusting some medical machinery with no apparent fear of the invalid woman. Blaze and Gambit stopped dead in the doorway. "Beast's told you what's wrong with me? He said you'd understand..."

"He told us." Gambit nodded, arms folded. Something immensely sorrowful flickered behind Mercury's grey eyes as she glanced from one old friend to the other. She knew she'd tried to kill them again, she knew she'd killed Lance, she knew all of it, but couldn't make it glue together in her head. Fear rode in her stomach, what would they do to her now?

"What do you want me to say?" Mercury bit at them argumentatively. "That I'm sorry? Well I am! But I couldn't help any of it! I thought you were going to come and kill me unless I killed you first! No, worse than that, I knew you would! I was certain of it! What else could I do? Do you have any idea what this is like for me? Knowing that I'm mad, and that my mutant powers are killing me?"

"Elle, stop it." Blaze went forward to her friend, took the other woman in her arms in a supportive hug, all fears and dreads forgotten. Eloise hid her face in Blaze's hair, choking back a sob. "I know what its like to be at odds with your powers, you don't have to explain yourself to me."

"I tried to kill you!" Eloise exclaimed. "I thought you were going to steal all my life away from me, that you were becoming a better me than I was. I thought it was me or you, and you were my friend!"

"Still am, Eloise." Blaze sighed, perching on the bed and motherly brushing Mercury's hair back from her face. "Don't worry, you're in the best place for people like us, there are people here who can help you..."

"Blaze..." Gambit warned menacingly, not liking this one bit. "Fais attention..." Blaze glanced at him briefly as he warned her to be careful, and held his eyes in a fiery stare.

"Tu ne me fais pas confiance?" She challenged him, asking if he trusted her. Rather than prove that he didn't, not right now, Gambit turned to Beast instead.

"Watch them." He ordered, knowing he had no place to make such a demand, and left.

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"How are you feeling Professor?" Storm asked gently, helping her mentor to sit up in his bed on the other side of the infirmary from where Blaze and Mercury were chatting animatedly in subdued voices.

"Much better, thank you Ororo." Charles' voice was a little rough, but his smile genuine. "Is Ilehana here?"

"I am Dad." Vixen replied. "Of all the..."

"Before you begin to lecture me, my dear daughter, on overtaxing my mental energies, why don't you tell me how we are doing?" Ilehana had to smile at that, at his words and the look in his eye as he cut off her tirade. Slowly, she obliged, hoping he wouldn't begin taxing himself again just yet.

"All the X-Men and pupils are clear, the only other infected individual is Sian, who is human and therefore immune. Havoc's taken her home. The two girls who died on Hawaii were mutants as well, the connection is clear, but what we can't see is how the virus could have been on Hawaii in the first place. Even if it is a recent mutation, it has to have a viral ancestor I should be able to trace. But the only diseases I can think of that act in anyway like this are found on the African subcontinent and rarely elsewhere."

"So you think it was a deliberate plot to release it on Hawaii?" Xavier asked, making Vixen nod.

"Especially given the fact that the victims were the President's daughter's friends, it sounds like someone is trying to get the government's attention. But we have no proof, or any idea who it might be. Also, without a sample of the pure virus in its early infectious stages, I'm stuck as to create a cure..."

"Then let us hope a cure will be unnecessary." Charles answered. "I see Mercury has been found?"

"Yeah." Scott answered this time, small smile on his face. "But its cost us a car..."

"My car..." Blaze looked over briefly, sadness in her eyes. "My poor car..."

"Excuse me, Blaze." Xavier quipped. "I think you'll find that the Aston Martin is mine."

"Was." Scott piped up, grinning as Blaze shot him a look that could kill. "I just hope the insurance will pay up..."

"That was odd..." Mercury commented slowly to Blaze as the conversation between Xavier and the X-Men went on without them. "I tried to stop the car with my powers, but it was hardly metal at all, apart from the engine..."

"The Aston was mainly carbon fibre, because it's so much lighter... I don't know Mercury, imagine not knowing that." Blaze smiled, making Mercury perk up a bit more herself.

"Oh please, Blaze! You were always far more into stuff like that than me. I'm sure its because you hung around with the guys more than you did with us girls, just look what its done to you!"

"What do you mean, look what its done to me!" Blaze laughed. "I'm doing just fine, thanks!"

"I'm glad, Blaze." Mercury smiled softly, "I really am. And maybe if you'll help me, I can be too? After all, there is only one mutant I've ever met who could completely suppress her powers..."

A slow chill ran up Blaze's spine, a lump rose in her throat. Mercury was right; Blaze was the only one who could teach her all she knew to survive and resist her mutation. And then it dawned on Blaze that here was someone who needed her. Her, not the X-Men, not Gambit, not even Xavier. Mercury smiled a thin smile as she watched a slow change wash over Blaze, knowing now she had Blaze exactly where she needed her...


	19. 19

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 19 

"You gotta get the X-Men to Hawaii!" Samantha Hawley nearly yelled the infirmary down as she entered at a charge like some infuriated rhinoceros. Her father's aide was barely two steps behind her. Matthew had been pulled from packing to leave the mansion by her terrified grip on his wrist. "The President's calling a top secret meeting about something to do with the virus!"

"How on earth do you know that, Shockwave?" Cyclops asked sceptically, but not sceptically enough that it masked his sudden concern.

"Because his daughter overheard him on the phone when he thought she was asleep! They know something, Professor, they have to!"

"Very well," Xavier began, sitting up straighter and trying to take charge. "Storm, my wheelchair please..."

"No you don't Dad." Ilehana admonished him, placing a long hand on his shoulder. "You're not getting involved in this, Doctor's orders, you need to rest. And I'm not leaving you here to go off to Hawaii either, so don't think you can sneak into Cerebro behind my back. Scott?"

"No problem." Cyclops replied seriously. "We can handle this Professor."

"I'm sure you can." Xavier voiced his trust in his team with confidence that made all the X-Men glow. "But perhaps to reason over our future with politicians, we need a political mind of our own on the mission. Matthew?"

"Professor, he's not even a mutant..." Scott started, cutting across Matthew's would-be reply. "He'd be at risk, put us all in danger..."

"It wasn't a request, Cyclops." Xavier turned his stern blue eyes on his foster-son. "Take Storm and Nightcrawler too. And Jubilee, a change of scene and a chance to make a difference will do her a great deal of good."

"All right." Scott nodded once, "Shockwave, round up Jubilee and Nightcrawler, we'll meet in the briefing room for you to tell us what you know." Sam nodded, taking the responsibility Cyclops place on her well, and left. "Blaze, if you're not busy, can you fit Matthew up with a uniform?"

"Sure Cyclops." Blaze agreed, with a sideways glance at the Professor. "You don't need me on the mission?"

"I think you've been busy enough." Xavier answered carefully, smiling as Scott and Ororo left the room. "Good luck Matthew, and welcome to the team." Matthew nodded nervously, before following Blaze out the door. It was Mercury who next spoke, her voice soft like tempered steel.

"Something tells me this place, whatever it is, is unique. And that I've just arrived in the middle of a crisis..."

"Take it from somebody who visits the Xavier School as often as possible," Hank answered with a caring smile, taking off his glasses to clean them on his lab coat. "This place is indeed unique, and neither is it ever far away from being in some sort of crisis..."

"Hank," Xavier replied with a smile as Ilehana helped him to lie down again. "My friend, you know us too well ..."

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"I guess Bobby's uniform would fit you best, and he's sweet enough not to mind you borrowing, unlike some of our more territorial walking lumps of testosterone..." Blaze commented with a smile. "Naming no names, obviously."

"Obviously." Matthew returned the smile, green eyes dancing. "Where do I put my stuff?"

"Just ditch it anywhere, it'll be fine." Blaze shrugged as Matthew removed his watch and placed it on a shelf. "Anything else you need, or shall I leave you to it?"

"Can you just warn me, is it as uncomfortable to wear as it looks?"

"Oh yes." Blaze replied seriously, handing the uniform over. "Twice as, at least. But at least it looks good..."

"Blaze." Matthew replied just as seriously, taking the uniform slowly. "A girl like you would look good in a uniform of yellow spandex..."

"Are you flirting with me, Matthew?" Blaze inquired gently, lifting her chin and knitting her brows together in a mixed expression of curiosity and amusement.

"Would you mind if I was?" Matthew stepped slightly closer, breath shallow, cheeks flushing slightly as Blaze didn't back away.

"Matthew..." She began, but was interrupted by a loud "Hey Blaze!" as Gambit stormed down the corridor at a furious pace. Blaze turned to greet her friend, making Matthew sigh his disappointment. Gambit frowned as he saw them and folded his arms.

"I'se hope I ain't interruptin' nothin'?"

"I'm just sorting Matthew out with a uniform, he's on the mission." Blaze pointed out, not quite knowing why she sounded so defensive. Turning her back on Gambit she smiled at the politician. "Good luck Matthew, I'll see you later."

"I'll catch you up." Gambit told her as she went to leave, voice dangerous. Matthew's eyes narrowed as Blaze shrugged and left, what did the Cajun want now? Gambit's glance fell back on the human instantly. He nodded to the timepiece on the shelf. "Nice watch, for a fake."

"How'd you know it's a fake?" Matthew retorted back, defensive of his property.

"'Cause I wouldn't steal it." The thief replied, revealing far more than he ever had about his chequered past to Matthew. The politician frowned, wondering how Blaze had ever gotten to know such an unsavoury character, or why the Professor kept Gambit about. But his thoughts were cut short as Gambit, now sure Blaze had actually gone, spoke again. "She ain't available."

"Excuse me?" Matthew asked harshly, perfectly understanding.

"You heard me." Gambit strode forward purposefully. "Blaze ain't in no state for you to be messin' wit' her head. She ain't available, an' for you she never will be."

"I don't see how it's any of your business, Gambit." Matthew replied, then wished he hadn't as Gambit pinned him up against the glass door of a uniform locker. "If she's not available," Matthew spluttered, not attempting to physically wrangle free from the stronger man, relying instead on his politician's tongue, "Who's she with? You?" Gambit pushed Matthew back harder, mutant eyes cold. "Go on Gambit, spit it out, all you gotta say is that she's with you and I'll back off..."

"You'll back off 'cause I'se told you to back off!" Gambit snarled, before letting go of the human and storming away in the direction Blaze had left in, back towards the infirmary. Matthew shook his head slowly, barely believing what had just happened, before realising how late he was for his first briefing as an X-Man...


	20. 20

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 20 

The President of the United States of America sat poised in his chair, listening very carefully to everything the Director of the CIA had to say about the people who had murdered his daughter's friends. And when his man had finished, there didn't seem anything for the President to say.

Not so far away, a sleek black jet landed baring a contingent of mutants. Cyclops lead his team as they disembarked, the red laser blasts of his visor betraying his urgency to make sure their voices were heard by those that mattered. Nightcrawler's teleporting martial art skill stunned more than one of the President's armed forces; Jubilee's frantic mutant attacks disabling their security systems. Storm raised a fog that covered the complex, making visibility poor and spotting the approaching X-Men nigh impossible with the naked eye. Matthew Cooper winced as Cyclops took out another guard, the man falling from his outpost to hit the deck below with force. This was not going to be an easy ride.

The President listened as his advisors argued amongst themselves, noting who sided with the mutants, and who saw that this was a way to ease the problems mutants caused. Who saw the weapon as a tactical aide for use only against mutants who caused trouble, who could not be stopped any other way. And which extremists would stop at nothing to infect every mutant across the world, and could arrange treaties with other likewise thinking foreign politicians over the sale of the virus. It was hypothesised that in weeks they could earn back the money spent acquiring the virus in weapons and oil from across the globe. But most of all, the President noted which of his inner circle said nothing at all, one way or the other.

"Marta, you've had nothing to say. Why don't you let us all in on what you are thinking?"

The woman in question frowned briefly, shaking her fine mousy hair back from her face and adjusting her fitted suit. She'd been with the President for as long as he could remember, a crucial part of his pre-election campaign and even more so since his nod into the hot seat.

"I believe we are missing the important message here." Marta began, her voice even over the disputes of the mainly male inner circle. One by one they all turned from their private arguments to listen to what she was saying. "These people, who ever they may be, have already proved they have the ability, the intelligence, and the power to go after mutant kind as they will. They have shown no mutant, not even those so well protected and disguised by our own intelligence community, is beyond their reach. They could very well be playing us, trying to make us slip up..."

"Are you suggesting that this is all the petty game of some foolhardy terrorist?" One of the military types attacked her. "Perhaps a mutant himself, trying to start their precious war? Maybe we should have Eric Lencher brought in for questioning?"

"What, again?" The joke came from the back of the group; Marta could not identify the cause, but smiled coldly at the snigger it caused amongst men who thought they were her betters.

"They can infect every mutant citizen of the United States and blame it on us. They will cause the biggest mass panic and public outcry ever seen. Fear of plague-carrying mutants will spread to every corner of the globe. Those who are not infected will be murdered by vigilante mobs, and we will be held responsible. Mr President, this is blackmail. We pay these people off to obtain control over the virus, or they will go it alone and release it into the population anyway."

Silence. And then uproar. Nobody quite knew how to take Marta's statement as the President sat there quietly and watched them squabble like three-year-olds over a Barbie doll. Then the chaos ran wild as armed men charged the room, flung politicians, agents and military leaders one way and another in order to get to the President. The President's eyes bulged; press-ganged into moving from his seat they almost made it to the door before several shadowy figures in uniforms he vaguely recognised clouded the door.

"Mr President." The two foremost men, one wearing a visor of some kind over his eyes and one without, marched straight up to the leader of the nation without fear. One of the guards reached for his gun, but a poof! of blue smoke and it was taken from his hand. That the President definitely recognised. Mutants. The Hawaiian sky darkened and a mist drifted about the room as lightning flashed mournfully outside, echoed by a pale blue sheen running over the hands of one of the other mutants dressed in black.

"Mr President." The same, easy American voice, equally likeable and untrustworthy, demanded his attention. "We are here to inform you that you don't have all the information regarding the viral threat to the mutant population." Matthew paused for a second, watching as the President indicated for his guards to let him go, moved to the top of the table as the committee's other members also retook their seats, if a little more hesitantly.

"You have my attention, mutant." The President answered, and Matthew was aware of more armed men moving into position behind the X-Men. The time for the use of force had passed; all now depended on Matthew's words. He hoped he was up to the task. He didn't take offence at being called a mutant; for the purposes of this argument, it didn't matter.

"Hawaii is not the only location of a viral outbreak. Travelling via a normal human infected here on the island, it has already claimed the life of an innocent mutant in upstate New York." Gasps around the room confirmed Storm's worse fears; they had been lead to believe that the virus was completely controllable. Jubilee smothered a tear at the thought of Colossus. "It is impossible to say how many other mutants have already been infected in the same way, through close contact with infected humans travelling from Hawaii. Whatever you have been told about the disease, about where it has come from, the people who told you are not in control of it."

"You have a chance, now, to stop this before it gets any further." Cyclops didn't speak as well as Matthew, but he just couldn't keep quiet, not on this. "Do you even know how many people, men, women, children, this virus could kill? If it gets out, there will be no stopping it."

"And you expect us to care, mutant?" One of the hardliners spoke with a sneer to his voice. "You expect us normal humans to mourn you mutant freaks when you're gone?"

"But what of the panic, the hysteria?" One of the others spoke. "Riots, anarchy, chaos. Mutants and normal people. We know what disease can do to a country; we would lose all control, no matter if humans are immure or not..."

"We need to know more. Where the virus came from. Who is manufacturing it. Whether there is a cure." Someone else counted factors off on his fingers as the man sat on her left nodded sagely.

"Mr President." Matthew spoke calmly, straight to the man at the heart of the discussion. "You have the control. Stop this now. Let these people know this country does not negotiate with terrorists; mutant or human."

"By that argument," The President spoke just as evenly, seemingly unaware of the sudden quiet around him. "I should not be speaking to you, bargaining here with your demands and threats of violence."

"I understand that, Mr President. But these are not ordinary times, and our information could not wait ..."

"I understand what you are saying." The President sat back in his chair, almost casually as chaos ruled around him. He tried not to notice the blue mutant who's almost killed him following the conversation diligently. "Though perhaps next time Charles Xavier would be so kind as to telephone before sending his people charging in to one of my meetings?"

"Do we have your agreement, then, Mr President?" Matthew pressed, "You will do everything in your power to protect the mutants of the United States?"

"You have my word that I will continue to dedicate myself and my presidency to the continuing protection of this country." The President answered tactfully, but his eyes were smiling. "I can say no more than that."


	21. 21

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 21 

"You've nearly ruined everything!"

The shadow man winced as her furious voice ripped through the ether between them. He tried to stutter something, but no words formed.

"How could you be so careless as to let the virus infect a mutant outside of the prescribed test zone? Did you not know how crucial the illusion of control is for the game we play?"

"Its no illusion, Ma'am." He stuttered, "We have complete control... It was simply not foreseen that a human would want to enter close enough contact with a mutant for it to be a problem..."

"Fool! All control is an illusion! And all eventualities must be explored, no matter how distasteful! I have had enough, warn your CIA contact that we grow weary of politics, and that as a gesture of good will we will act before payment is confirmed."

"Ve... Very good Ma'am." The shadow man confirmed. "And the target?"

"Let them see how useful this virus is, no matter the level of control. Lets see how low crime levels drop when all the mutant scum of New York City are dead. Pollute the bars and clubs. If this doesn't get their attention, hit a city a week until the money is in the bank."

"Very well..." The man replied, but she'd already signed off the link. Sweating he pushed back his hair and spun around in his chair. The factory around him, his factory, hummed with activity of men and machinery. Little did they know they were brewing the most potent biological weapon ever conceived to fight for the future of the human race...

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"And now breathe out, slowly. That's it." Blaze's voice was warm and calming, her own breathing as slow as the gentle rising of the sun, the leisurely flicker of flames in a hearth. Mercury sat cross-legged, sideways on the sofa in the rec. room, Blaze mirroring her position almost perfectly apart from the redhead not having one arm in a sling. Both had their eyes closed, the daylight dancing on their eyelids like fairy dust as they meditated.

"Are you sure this works?" Eloise opened her eyes with a sigh. "I don't feel any different."

"You wont if you're this impatient!" Blaze laughed. "And for me to call someone else that is saying something!"

"What's it feel like?"" Bobby asked curiously, leaning forward in his seat across the room.

"Oh its better than..." Mercury started before Blaze chipped in. "It feels like an island of calm in a stormy ocean, a good book in a library of beauty magazines, a decent film in a back catalogue of romantic comedies. And nothing like what Mercury is implying."

"Oh, okay." Bobby replied, not entirely understanding what Blaze was on about. But already Mercury had moved the conversation on, as Logan had noticed she'd been doing all afternoon. Wolverine sat on the windowsill, diligently overseeing the whole thing for the Xaviers' collective peace of mind.

"Speaking of which, you're not telling me that even with all these hunky guys about you're single, Blaze?" Eloise knew the instant Blaze raised an eyebrow at her that she'd hit a sore spot she could exploit. "You gotta tell me if you made it on the list yet?"

"The list?" Blaze scoffed, "I have immunity, thanks very much."

"What list?" Bobby asked, intrigued as if by a foreign language he almost understood but not quite. And he thought he knew Blaze...

"The list!" Mercury cried, "I knew it! You are so on the ex-list, it's written all over you! Thank hell for that! At least now I can talk to you about..."

"No way." Blaze shook her head. "I still don't want to know about you and Gambit! I never did and I never will, no matter how often you try and bring it up."

"No?" Mercury smiled thinly. "The can I at least ask..." Bobby squinted at the two girls as if that could help him overhear what Mercury was whispering to Blaze; making both their eyes glaze over slightly as they giggled. Wolverine on the other hand didn't have that problem, the look on his face as he stood to leave one of distaste.

"You're disgusting." He told Gambit as the Cajun entered, thoroughly traumatised.

"My ears is burnin'." Gambit let Wolverine go to take his shift watching Mercury with slightly more humour than his college. "You'se maybe talkin' about Gambit?"

"Hum, burning ears..." Mercury looked decisively at Blaze, "He's asking for it."

"Too easy." Blaze deflected the challenge to use her powers, knowing that Mercury was longing to see what else Blaze was capable of now she'd learned to control them.

"What the?" Gambit frowned, walking past the girls on the sofa to look out the window concernedly. "Police..."

"No way." Blaze was on her feet; old thief's dread washing over her as she saw it was true. Bobby got up too, more worried than he'd say. "Maybe they're here about the crash?"

"No, that's been sorted, Ilehana made sure." Wolverine came back in to get a better look. "This is somethin' else."

"The mutant known as Blaze!" A loudspeaker addressed the mansion as no less than eight patrol cars screeched to a halt in front of the house, lights flashing impressively, guns of all sizes and descriptions homed on the classrooms and students' bedrooms. "You are surrounded! Come out of the building with your hands up!"

"No way..." Blaze repeated, backing away from the window, fighting her firepower. "No way..." Sparks began to fly, Mercury lurching unevenly from the sofa as it began to smoulder. A magazine of Storm's left lying on the side spontaneously combusted, forcing Bobby to use his power on both items. "No..." Blaze's eyes betrayed her terror as inbred, beyond any plausible way of escape, a phobia. Wolverine could see it and even understand it. There was only one answer.

"Run Blaze." She glanced at her friend, not understanding. Logan repeated himself, trying to keep calm. "Run, we'll solve this. Just get out of here, now."

"Go Blaze." Bobby backed Logan up, eyes full of sympathy. "Trust us, just go."

Blaze nodded, then turned and made a break for the doorway. Her heart pounded, knowing she must have made another mistake, must have been the break-in she'd done for Studd... A voice called her back.

"Laura..."

"No, Rem, it's my mistake, you're not running with me..." She was firm, but his eyes were colder. His hand moved suddenly, and Blaze found herself catching something small and metallic that cut into her palm. Slowly she opened her hand, looking down at his bike key.

"Don't write it off." Was all he said, and she knew right then he'd had no intention of running with her. Good, she thought adamantly, but her stomach plummeted. She tried to meet his eyes, but found she didn't have the guts to see his disappointment in her.

"Don't abandon me." She almost thought the words were her own, she'd been thinking the exact same thing, but it was Mercury who spoke, not Blaze. "I need you Blaze, I need to learn what you can teach me."

Blaze didn't answer, her fist slamming sideways into the wooden panel of the hallway to reveal a secret passageway down to the garage. Mercury smiled shyly and disappeared ahead of the redhead. Laura met Remy's eyes briefly, knowing that everything was exactly wrong between them, and left. The wood slid slowly back into place behind the two women, and Gambit was left alone.


	22. 22

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 22 

"Any ideas?" Logan asked, cracking his knuckles and then his neck as he led the way to the front door.

"Non." Gambit replied as Bobby echoed the sentiment with a shake of his head. "Ce'st impossible."

"Nothing is impossible, Gambit." Xavier pointed out with a smile, appearing like a prophecy from the lower levels, Ilehana by his side. "I would have thought you of all people would have known that."

"You're not telling me that you're letting him use his telepathy again?" Wolverine began, addressing not Xavier but Ilehana. The blonde smiled sadly and shook her head.

"I can handle this." Ilehana pointed out, walking past her father, her partner and her friends to open the front door, to stare down the police with thoughtful eyes. "Who are you looking for?"

One by one the policemen turned to their colleagues, uneasiness and unreadiness making their weapons less lethal. Xavier nodded to Bobby and Gambit as all of the team noted students carelessly leaning out of the windows around the school, unaware of the danger. The two X-Men headed off to caution the teenage mutants, close windows and effectively prepare for war. As if on the breeze Ilehana's mental suggestions could almost be heard.

#Who are you looking for? #

#Are you looking for someone? #

#There's no danger here, why are you armed? #

#This is a school, why are you here? #

#Who are you looking for? #

The police slowly lowered their weapons properly. They didn't know why they were here, at a school, armed to the teeth and expecting a fight. They couldn't remember who they were looking for.

But then something changed. The sky darkened as a shadow passed over like an angel of death. The X-Jet returned at the worst moment imaginable, throwing the police into turmoil, distracting Vixen at the crucial moment. Now they wouldn't believe a thing she suggested! Damn Scott and his perpetually bad timing!

"Vixen..." Logan growled in the back of his throat, taking half a step forwards as if daring the police to shoot.

#"Stop."#

A whispered word. It took all of his effort to barely whisper it. But it worked. The police stopped aiming their weapons, stopped blinking, stopped thinking. He drew on the offers of help from his family, from Scott, Ororo, Ilehana and Kurt. Even Logan quickly grasped what was going on, didn't grimace as he felt Xavier's weak mental fingers clawing for energy, for strength. As Gambit, Jubilee and Iceman threw their support to Xavier, a bond tied the X-Men together at that moment that was deeper than telepathy. Threw themselves in to save him like lifeguards in a storm of telepathic temptation, fighting against his own exhaustion. A tie as deep as love? They gave all they could to save him, why not call it such?

As one, they felt their minds suddenly torn in too many directions, ripped away searching for those who were not part of the joining. Kitty, Rogue, Blaze, Colossus, Jean... Far away a chestnut haired brunette sat on a grass bank in a park, pouring over sheet music, wondering how she heard the melody on the wind. Was she being called home? In a coffee shop in Toronto, a young woman with white streaks in her hair took a double take at the polished glass in the window, wondering if she had just imaged her old boyfriend, her first love, standing just there? Blaze adeptly pushed all thoughts of Gambit away; that Mercury needed her was all she wanted to know. There was nothing, a simple absence, where Colossus had been not so long ago that threatened to tear asunder all remnants of the bond that gave the X-Men this sudden access to Xavier's telepathy, boosted his power beyond even Cerebro's capabilities...

But then somebody was with them. No, not somebody, a something. A power so indescribable that it swamped them and left them feeling like ants under a magnifying lens at midday. So weak, so helpless, so pitiful and so warm. With a light laughter at their predicament, she spoke inside their heads from a place so far beyond reason or reality she may well have been a dream.

#Back you go. It isn't time for you to be scattered. Back you go. #

Not one of them could explain it, nor where the strength came from to disperse to police with the essence of Blaze scorched from their minds. But Xavier's joy that finally, finally someone had reached back to him from the void, acknowledged his efforts and responded with equal delight at his being there, was so potent who she was did not matter...

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"I think when Blaze comes back you will have some serious explaining to do." Xavier's words to Matthew when it was all over, the jet landed safely and the police scattered. Gambit, disquieted, could only hope that Xavier was right, and that it was a matter of when and not if Blaze came home.

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"It's like, the whole world suddenly got bigger, y'know? Like it all just swung into view..." Mercury waved her arm about enthusiastically, near pelting Blaze around the head. Eight years without drink, and she'd started on whiskey. Tipsy did not describe it. "...Just like that. Ooh, I like him..." She batted her eyelids coyly at a very taken young man so much that Blaze actually turned her face away and pretended she didn't know her friend.

They were in New York City; in a bar Blaze had never been to before, set in the mock-ancient foundations of some modern tower block. It was like a crypt down here, Blaze surmised, dank and dirty in some vaguely designer and possibly ritualistic way. Bottles and candles fought for attention on high shelves, cracked mirrors implied the clientele were not as beautiful as they thought they were. Blaze sipped her coke delicately as Mercury continued her tirade about how wonderful it was to be free woman. Free of prison, of her powers or of the mansion Blaze couldn't decipher, and Mercury was getting so drunk it was doubtful the steely-eyed woman knew herself.

There were familiar faces in the bar that Blaze was trying hard not to be spotted by. She'd tried to convince Mercury that they should find somewhere else, but like a red rag to a bull, Mercury had stubbornly pushed the smaller mutant aside and physically charged the bar as soon as she'd seen it. Mace and Poker, Wolverine's faux comrades, seemed oblivious to her presence there so far, but Blaze was carefully keeping an eye on them both. Had that really been less than a week ago that they had rescued Logan from their gang's clutches? Sometimes she half wished Logan didn't heal so damn quick, made his escapades a little hard to keep up with.

Suddenly Poker slammed down his tumbler of whiskey so clumsily on his table that his flailing arm caught the near empty bottle and sent it skidding to the floor. His head slumped forward, even as Mace shook his comrade in anger at the spilt alcohol, and the kid started to cough violently. Thinking that Poker was having difficulties with the strength of the drink, Mace dropped him back into the folds of their sofa in disgust, fighting a cough of his own and covering his mouth with one of his iron fists. Blaze's eyes narrowed dangerously as she saw his shock, pulling his hand away to find it splattered with blood...

"Yoo-hoo! Blaze!" Mercury giggled as she waved her hand in front of Blaze's face, then tugged friendlily at one of Blaze's fine curls. "Y'know we really should get booked into a salon, two hot prospects like us. Now it's just the two of us at last, we have to look out for one anoth..." Mercury cleared her throat heavily, patting her chest with her palm. Her other arm was still in its sling, and though her bruises were cunningly disguised by her make up, Blaze had to wonder if she'd made the right decision in removing Mercury from medical supervision so soon. Probably not, she grimaced as Mercury knocked back another gulp of her whiskey to kill her cough. Blaze couldn't remember the last time she'd made a good decision. "Is it me," Mercury continued, "Or is the room spinning?"

"Its you, Elle." Blaze sighed, sober in more ways than one. "You're drunk."

"And you're sober." Eloise pointed out, wagging her finger critically. "Did I ask you if you minded if I drank? You don't do you?" Her delicate eyebrows knitted together. "Did I ask you why you don't drink anymore?"

"Yes I'm sober, yes you have asked me, and no I don't mind if you drink so long as you don't throw up on me." Blaze replied, eyes glancing back to Mace and Poker. There was something really starting to worry her now, something she couldn't ignore. Still Poker coughed, but Mace was lay with his head cushioned by the back of the chair, eyes staring at the ceiling, totally vacant. Every now and then a shudder passed through him, like a smothered cough, or like he struggled to breathe. Were those welts on his neck? She needed to get closer; she had to know for sure...

"Where are you going?" Mercury retorted, outraged that her friend was wandering off. "I wanted to ask if I could braid your hair? I've seen it, all pretty with different coloured threads... We did have a TV in prison y'know..."

Blaze wasn't really listening, already leaving her bar stool and stealing towards the gang members. Some guy tried to block her, offer her a drink. She didn't smile as she waved him away, her eyes locked on the two mutants on the sofa. She passed right behind them, thief's eyes taking everything in a matter of seconds. Both men's skin was blotchy, as though irritated or inflamed. And their breathing was rough, rougher than the cheap whiskey they consumed... The same alcohol as Mercury was drinking. Blaze's eyes flicked anxiously back towards the bar, to her beautiful friend perched elegantly in zinc-black trousers and low kitten heels. Mercury choked, a wet sounding splutter that betrayed Blaze's worse fears.

In a sudden motion Blaze stormed back to the bar, though noticeably not near Mercury. A fist full of money and she had her own bottle of glorious golden whiskey. She didn't take the glass, or the change, leaving the barman shaking his head sadly at a girl gone so wrong. Instead she stormed in a fury of stiletto heels and long red curls up the stone steps to street level, and Remy's waiting bike. The roar of the engine was a challenge to the night, her heels kicking off the ground as she sped away down the street. Back in the bar, Mercury stopped coughing, wiped blood from her mouth and looked up to find she was alone.


	23. 23

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 23 Day 06, Saturday......... 

"Its in the whiskey."

Blaze slammed the bottle home clunking on the counter in the infirmary like she was trying to beat it to death. Her eyes were intense; her expression so compelling it was almost vacant, as Ilehana, Ororo and Hank just watched her. Shaking her head and forcing her slender hand to peel itself from the polished glass she'd been clinging onto despite the pain from her stitches, she tried to explain again.

"The virus. It's been let out, in New York, and it's in the alcohol. That's how they're distributing it, that's how they are going to blackmail the government, cause anti-mutant riots, whatever. Not to mention kill us all."

"Or keep us all stone sober for the rest of time..." Ilehana muttered; picking up the relatively harmless looking bottle and watching the stark light of the infirmary play off the golden liquid inside.

"I confess don't understand." Hank inquired. "How do you know? Have you drunk it and can describe the early symptoms? Where is Hg?"

"Hg?" Blaze wanted to answer all Beast's questions, but that particular one didn't make sense.

"Mercury, Hg is the scientific terminology for mercury." Hank was worried, and Blaze realised there had been more to this patient-doctor relationship than mere ethics. Mercury could have that effect on people.

"I don't drink Hank. But I have seen other mutants, and yes I'm sure that's what they were, both drinking this stuff and showing all the same symptoms that Colossus did."

"And Mercury?" Storm this time, her lovely emotional eyes highly concerned. As always Blaze's heart went out in thanks to the air-goddess for that silent emotional support.

"One of them." Blaze answered with a sigh that betrayed how tired she was, how scared for her friend. "I couldn't tell her..."

"So you'se abandon her. What, she not useful to you no more? Not somebody you can help to make yourself feel better?"

Blaze spun on the spot, anger suddenly overriding her every other desire. Beast, Storm and Vixen suddenly found they had other things to be attending to as Gambit faced down the aftermath of his thoughtless words alone.

"Je ne suis pas parfait, Gambit!" Blaze snapped, "Maybe you think I should be but I'm just not perfect! I got scared, my friend is going to die and I got scared! C'est d'accord?"

"Okay? It okay? Chere..." Exasperated, Gambit took hold of her arms and pulled her into a hug. He didn't say anything else, neither of them did, for which the room's other inhabitants were eternally grateful. Storm and Hank exchanged laden glances of concern and secret knowledge. But equally as Blaze relaxed into the friendly embrace, it was over too soon, Xavier calling to her in her head. She broke away from her friend unwillingly, but without explanation...

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Mercury awoke hazily to the morning's murky sunlight on what promised to be the hottest day of the year so far. She hadn't made it back to her hotel room. Instead she was terrified to discover she'd collapsed drunk and unwell on some park bench. Rolling over, she coughed, feet scrabbling for the floor, hand to her mouth to cover the splutter, her fingers backed away hastily as they touched an acid burn on her face. Her lungs felt like they were dissolving, her skin tugged at her, irritating in multiple places like poorly healed scars. Or new skin lesions. She was ill? How could she be? And where was Blaze? Blaze had promised not to let anything bad happen to Eloise. She'd promised to take care of her...

Mercury knew then that Blaze had known she was ill. The virus. The virus that had killed Blaze's friend. It was out, and Mercury had it. She was going to die, and Blaze had been too scared to face that. Eloise closed her eyes against the uncomfortably bright sunlight, rested her head back on the painted bench, and waited for death to claim her. After all her paranoia, all her nightmare terrors she had imagined over the years, suddenly she was not afraid.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jubilee sat outside, examining her feelings with intricate precision. Her stomach growled unpleasantly, and she wondered when the last time was she'd bothered to eat anything. Or shower, Jubilation was suddenly very aware that she probably smelt. Yuk. She knew she'd so forcefully abandoned all thoughts of carrying on without her dead friend that she'd stopped doing the things that would allow her to live.

She felt old. Jubilee had never felt old in her life, she was the baby of the bunch, the giddy school girl with outrageous taste who dared herself to get away with things no other kid would dream of. But now she felt weary and tired, uneasy in her own company. Why? She'd been through rough times in the past, especially before she ever came to the Xavier School. An orphan, she'd been passed from foster home to foster home and when they found out she was a mutant, well... But this was different. Was it because she couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel? Because if invincible Colossus could succumb to a disease the X-Men had no way of stopping, any of them could?

She knew what Peter would say to that. That she was being stupid. Over-excitable, definitely, but mostly stupid. The X-Men could solve anything between them. All she needed to have was a little faith...

On cue, Nightcrawler teleported in to sit next to his younger friend with an elaborate sigh and a sly sideways smile. Jubilee couldn't help but risk a smile back. For a moment neither the German nor the Chinese American said anything, staring out over the grounds in amicable silence, enjoying the fresh morning sunshine before the day got too hot. The only movement was a casual twitching of Kurt's long blue tail he seemed unable to control, a soft stillness resting in the warm air without even a hint of a breeze.

"So..." Kurt did not so much break the peace as add to it when he spoke, still smiling. "You going for the grungy look these days, nien? Was ist das all about?"

"Hey, leave me be, Kurt!" Jubilee couldn't help but smile at his teasing. A smile quickly lost as she sighed, brown eyes full of anxious worry and pain. "I don't know what to do. Everyone looks at me like I'm just some kinda joke, but I don't feel funny anymore. I don't know what I'm doin' here, with Peter dead, apart from waiting to die myself..."

"Grieving for those we have lost is part of life. No one expects you to be your usual cheerful self right now Jubilee, nobody but you perhaps."

"The why isn't anyone else grieving? 'Cept maybe for Bobby, nobody even seems to remember we haven't even buried Peter yet?" Jubilee's remorse was drifting towards anger, making Nightcrawler sigh a sad little sigh for his friend.

"The X-Men, they is busy trying to do so many things. They will grieve; when it is time that they can do so, and grieve well."

"And when will that be?" Jubilee asked, faith that such a time may ever happen near non-existent.

"Soon," Kurt promised, putting a three-fingered hand comfortingly around Jubilee's shoulder, briefly shocked as she turned to hide herself in his embrace, smiling at her trust of him. "I promise you Jubilee, soon we will be able to celebrate Colossus' life with all of our hearts..."


	24. 24

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars. Here goes 24, so all together now; 'bleep bleep, bleep bleep, bleep bleep." No I'm not mad, honest. Well, maybe a little...

Scene 24 

Xavier allowed Blaze the luxury of a shower and a change of clothes before bringing her in to find out what had happened to bring the police down on her so hard. She arrived at his office door looking physically refreshed; red hair shining, long blue-grey denim skirt brushing her ankles, square-necked, off-the-shoulder short sleeved tan top and black lace choker completing the gypsy-esque look. But emotionally, she appeared haggard, to Xavier's strengthening telepathy a void of dark thoughts and emotions like tar enough to drown in.

It was the guilt in the room that unnerved Xavier the most, though he fought to hide that nervous feeling. Not just from Blaze, guilty for abandoning Mercury now as well as rejecting Gambit's concern, and worrying the Professor to the point of illness. He felt guilt also from the man who, with the best intentions, had called down one of Blaze's worse fears upon her head. Matthew Cooper leant his arm on the windowpane, his forehead on that arm, back to where Blaze had just entered. Only when the door catch clicked closed did he turn, watching Blaze's darting suspicious eyes jump from the Professor to him and back again.

"Professor?"

"Take a seat Laura." Xavier indicated to an empty blue chair, and then turned his head to Matthew. "You too. I think this is a story we had best all hear sitting down."

"What story?" Blaze was confused, "I thought you wanted to see me about the police coming after me? I swear I don't know how they tracked me down, I was sure I'd covered my tracks, but maybe..."

"It wasn't you..." Matthew's voice was hesitant, rough, and truthful. Blaze looked at him sharply, frowning, but she didn't say anything. Clearing his throat Matthew started again, he owed her this much at least for what he'd done. "It was me. I was worried about you, Laura. I have a friend, he's in the CIA, I asked him to check up on you for me and..."

"You did what!" Blaze was instantly on her feet again, yelling, furious with her hands on her slender hips. Eyes aflame, she stared Matthew down until he dropped his gaze and muttered his small justification.

"I'm sorry... I was just trying to find out a little about you, I didn't mean to get you in trouble. I just didn't think you'd have anything to hide..."

"In my experience, Matthew, everybody has something to hide." Xavier counselled sagely. "Even me."

"You could have just asked!" Blaze sat down again, too exhausted to maintain her fighting stance for long. She crossed her legs so her long denim skirt split, revealing knee high brown lace-up boots that must have taken forever to pull on. "You didn't have to go nosing about behind my back, I don't lie about my past to my friends."

"Friends? Blaze you've not had two words for me since I've been here." Matthew's anger shone through now. "I know you've had a rough ride recently, but you've not even managed to be civil to me. What exactly was I supposed to do?"

"I've had my orders." Blaze was the one now to break the eye contact, glancing at Xavier before dropping her beautiful brown orbs as though ashamed. "Its nothing personal."

"Orders?" Matthew demanded, turning sharply on Xavier. "You ordered her to keep away from me? Ordered Gambit to warn me off? Damn it Charles, I'm not one of your students who's life you can control!"

"Gambit warned you off?" Blaze cut in before Xavier could reply. Matthew nodded, curtly, making Blaze risk a furtive smile. "I didn't know about that..."

"Nor I." Xavier treated the statement with a bit more decorum. "My orders were for Blaze alone, she is the only one of the X-Men who knew anything about them. And they were for your protection, Matthew. If only you could see your own importance..."

"You'll have to excuse me if I feel my importance to a bald old man is not as high on my list as that of a beautiful young woman." Matthew's voice was sharp, his remarks deliberately cutting, but Xavier only frowned.

"You're not going to get throught to him, Professor." Blaze spoke softly, well used to stubborn men. "Could you please give us a moment?"

"Of course." Xavier nodded his reply before making himself scarce. Perhaps this wasn't the wisest course of action, but all of Blaze's thoughts were on one thing and one thing only.

Trust me, Professor. Please, just trust me...

For a moment after the door clicked closed again behind Xavier, nothing was said. The silence dragged out between the two as both of them fought to find the right words to begin. With every second that went by, the tension grew like some great vine, unravelling in new and complicated ways between them, making those first few words even more difficult to scrape together. Outside the window a songbird chirruped pleasantly, children ran past in the corridor calling to one another. Matthew sighed, a weary sigh that seemed to echo off the soft furnishings of the office. Standing, he walked back to the window, turned his back on Blaze and waited. How long would she drag this torment out?

"Matthew?" Her hand rested warm on his shoulder, making him turn to face her. There was a light frown on her face, but her eyes were more worried than angry. "Matthew, can I ask you a question?"

"You just did." He replied hoarsely, forcing a small smile. "But go ahead."

"What do you think the Professor sees in you?" She didn't take her hand off his shoulder, wouldn't break the eye contact she'd made. How was he supposed to think with her looking at him so intensely like that?

"I don't know. A human who doesn't see mutants as a threat I guess, and a politician who knows a few people who might be useful to him..." Matthew shrugged. "I've not thought about it to be honest, what he wants from me I mean."

"He doesn't want anything from you, Matthew. He wants to help you because you may be exactly what us mutants need. He doesn't see what you are now, but who you might be in a few years or whenever... Matthew, he can see that you would be a fantastic senator, maybe even President. People would vote for you, human and mutant, you could do real good for this country..."

"I don't get it. What's my career got to do with anything? What's it got to do with me and you?" He reached out and took her other hand in his, gently as though he tried to catch a firefly. Matthew was more than relieved when she didn't shy away from his touch. Was there hope for this dream after all?

"You know who I am now. I know how you see me, an English mutant schoolteacher with a sideline in saving the world. One of the good guys. And why wouldn't I be exactly the type of girl an up-and-coming politician be seen with?" Blaze risked a small smile, before pulling away from Matthew and turning to the window. "But you know now what Xavier has been trying to protect you from; I've not always been a good guy. And my past does have a habit of coming back and biting me." She looked back deep into his eyes then, searching for any sign that he understood, but there was only a faint glimmer of comprehension.

"I don't care about that." He swore adamantly. And he didn't either, he'd thought about it and he really didn't care who Blaze used to be. What mattered was who she was now.

"Well you should do. The rest of the world will, Matthew, if we make it or not they would still hold it against you that ever dated a criminal. Your bright future, the one the Professor feels is so close now you can almost smell it, would go up in a cloud of smoke and ash."

"So you're rejecting me on the promise that possibly, in some future somewhere, somebody will see us being together as a bad thing? And because your boss told you to? Maybe I'm being impulsive here, but this isn't about any of them. I have to know, what do you want to do Laura?"

"It's a small sacrifice, Matthew, for the greater good." Blaze wouldn't look at him. "It's what being an X-Man is all about." She left it unsaid that to her it was also what being a mother was all about, sacrificing everything she could to protect her absent child. If the CIA had been on her tail, had they found Jessica? Would they leave her be? She had no way to check...

"Just answer the question." Matthew asked again, folding his arms defensively. "What do you want?"

What did she want? To have her daughter safe and protected, to have mutants accepted for who they were, to feel safe in her own head... Her eyes drifted to the scarred skin on her left arm.

"I want..." Blaze sighed, then stubbornly shook her curls back from her face and set her chin. "I want you to know that you say all the right things, at exactly the right time. But you're better off with someone else, some other Miss Perfect. I can't love you Matthew..."

"...I... Why not? How can you know, just like that? What's wrong with me? Is it because I'm not a mutant?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Blaze stopped him smoothly, eyes sympathetic. "You're a wonderful man, Matthew, it's just..."

"There's someone else, isn't there? Gambit implied as much." Matthew's voice turned bitter again. "Tell me, is it him?"

"No and no." Blaze replied a touch too defensively. "You know I've not been well, Remy's just being defensive of me because of it... And it hasn't helped that I've been a pain in the neck about it either."

"Whatever." Matthew gave up, crushed. "Maybe someday you'll change your mind..."

"I wont." Blaze admitted. "I'm sorry."

"Then I guess there's nothing left for me here. Time I made myself scarce." Matthew decided, looking at Blaze closely. Would she really just let him leave?

"Take care." She kissed his cheek briefly, but pulled away sharply. "Safe journey home."


	25. 25

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 25 

"...A curfew has been imposed today in New York City, and dozens of bars closed until further notice, after the city's hospitals have been overwhelmed with cases of party-goers becoming ill on nights out..."

"...It has been speculated that many of the cases of sickness are actually mutants. We go now to Dr Daniel Choy at..."

"...A mutant plague, proving that..."

"... Friends of the President's daughter..."

"Hank is that your phone ringing again?" Storm interrupted the TV's constant dribble as various news channel anchormen squabbled for Scott and Hank's attention, whilst Cyclops flicked channels. Beast sighed and nodded. "It hasn't stopped ringing since all this 'news' started to be broadcast. They want me to go live on air with my views on the supposed crisis."

"Supposed?" Scott chimed in, stopping flicking and leaning forward in his seat to scowl at pictures of violence in the streets. "This carries on much longer, there won't be much supposed about any of it. People aren't taking well to the idea that mutants might all be carrying some kind of disease. They could sure use someone to tell 'em otherwise Hank."

"And how would you like me to do that, Cyclops? On the radio?" Beast's voice was sarcastic, but his body language betrayed his angst and unhappiness. "I have a reputation, I can't arrive for a studio debate looking like this..."

"Hank," Ororo came and sat elegantly besides her friend, her long hand resting gently on the soft fur of his shoulder. "It doesn't matter what you look like. Maybe it will upset some people, yes, but what you can tell them may..."

"They wont hear what I have to say, Ororo. They will be too busy judging me a hairy blue freak..."

"So what, you're going to hide out here for the rest of your life? Give up everything you've worked for all your life because now you can't keep hiding that you're a mutant?" Cyclops accosted Hank with a bluntness Ilehana would have been proud of.

"I once asked a wise lady why, as a shape shifter, she did not pass as a normal human everyday." Kurt had been strangely quiet up until this point; perched on top of the windowsill, tail twitching. "She replied that it was because we should not have to..." Kurt smiled. "It may not be easy, but have faith. You should not have to give up a life you love because you do not look the same as everyone else. God, in His wisdom, has made you different for a purpose, and He loves tremendous variety."

"You're right." Hank spoke slowly, as if trying this new idea out in his head to see if it fitted. "Of course you are right Kurt. Thank you. Now if you will excuse me, I have a phone call to make..." And he left, mobile already in his large furry hand. Storm and Cyclops turned on Kurt with confused expressions.

"Mystique?" Scott asked incredulously, "I can't believe you just called Mystique wise."

But in reply Kurt could only grin wickedly...

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"Blaze was right." Ilehana told her father matter-of-factly. "The virus is in the whiskey. It's a brilliant plan; the fermenting of the alcohol provides perfect conditions for the virus to survive. And of course a cunning mechanism to enter the preferred hosts, humans, or more specifically, mutants."

"I've been checking up," Bobby dropped in effortlessly, clicking mouse button and pulling up a map of the United States on a computer. "This particular brand is brewed in a distillery here, in Tennessee. What we don't know is if the workers or management know anything about the virus, or whether it's someone else who's spiking the drink, maybe working undercover for another agency."

"So what you're saying is it might not be the wisest course of action to charge in there all guns blazing... Which I suppose rules Logan out at least." Xavier replied with humour in his tone despite the seriousness of the situation. Ilehana smiled; both at the small tease of her choice in partner, and that her father was well enough now to make it. "What do you suggest?"

I'll go." Bobby piped up. "I can disable the security systems, hack into the computers and see what I can find." He folded his arms, as if daring either Xavier to question his ability. Neither would ever dream of it.

"Very well, but take Gambit, Kurt and Blaze too. Ilehana, tell Scott, Logan, Jubilee and Storm I want them in New York City, trying to calm the situation there."

"Sure Dad. A little rough weather what you had in mind?" Ilehana knew she was being left out of both missions, a fact that stung but made sense. Someone still had to try and come up with a cure for the virus, no matter how hard that was proving.

"It sounds a very good idea." Xavier Senior agreed. "And Bobby?" He addressed Iceman just before Bobby left the room. "Good luck."

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"I'm not arguing with you Gambit." Bobby stuck his chin out stubbornly, so like Scott Kurt couldn't help but stifle a snigger. "You're not flyin' the jet."

"An' who put you in charge, mon Ami? You even old enough to drive yet?" They were crossing the hanger, the X-Jet looming ominously above them as their adrenaline began to pump ready for their mission. Scott's team had already left for the city on bikes, the garage very nearly a crime scene as Logan and Cyclops had fought over who got to ride what, until Jubilee had got bored and fried the bike in question just to get things moving. Neither man had been impressed, but she had proved her point.

"The Professor did, and yeah, I'm plenty old enough. More than that, I actually showed up to my flight training without a hangover..." Iceman pointed out none too gently, marching ahead of the rest of them.

"I could fly it." Blaze pointed out. "Photographic memory, I've seen Storm fly this hulk so often I could fly it in my sleep..."

"You drove your car off a bridge, Blaze." Bobby teased, spinning round and walking backwards so he could still talk to her. "I don't even wanna know what you could do with a plane, and I don't particularly wanna find out either."

"He got a point, Petite." Gambit risked a smile at Blaze, who scowled back at them all, pouting. "So we just let Gambit drive an' everyone'll be happy, eh?"

Bobby didn't answer as he shook his head and strode up the steps to the cockpit. He'd thought Xavier's good luck was for the mission, but compared to leading this lot, the mission was gonna be a piece of cake. Just as he thought he'd secured his driving seat, there was a sudden poof! of smoke, and a familiar blue-skinned elf was strapping himself into the pilot's chair with a grin.

"Kurt!" The other three moaned dramatically, then had to grab hold of something quickly as Nightcrawler deftly launched them onto their newest mission...


	26. 26

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 26 

To Nightcrawler's credit, the jet landed equally as smoothly as if Storm had been at the controls. Entry to the huge distillery building was easy enough, the numbers of staff reduced at the weekend, and two well-practiced thieves to find an unwatched fire exit. It was alarmed, but not so that it could withstand Iceman's chilling touch. They waited around the corner for the lone security guard to come to them, whistling on his way to the kitchens to make coffee. Nightcrawler poof!ed to besides the man, knocked him out with a sharp blow to the jaw before he had time to react to the whirling smoke around him. They locked him in a janitor's closet, hoped he wouldn't wake too soon.

And so they entered the security office with no fuss and no bother. Iceman's eyes lit up at the sight of the machines. He knew this system; it was the same one they had used at the university. This was going to be too easy! He sat leisurely, spinning the chair around to begin as Nightcrawler and Blaze took over examining the CCTV system on the opposite wall. Gambit found a spot to lean on, arms folded, red-on-black eyes watching everything but not getting involved. It didn't take long for him to get cynical.

"Dis borin'. I'se goin' take a look around." Gambit leant up off the desk, dusted down his trench coat and headed for the door.

"Be careful." Nightcrawler offered as Blaze and Iceman exchanged a brief glance, but Gambit had already left.

He strode down the long corridors like he owned them, his thief's confidence his biggest ally. Every closed door he came to, he took a few moments to peer through the small glass panels injected in them, being thoroughly nosy. A whirring security camera swung around to look at him, and he grinned at his friends at the other end. In the security room, Nightcrawler smiled back, seemingly unaware that Gambit couldn't actually see him. Blaze pouted, annoyed for some unknown reason at Gambit's over-confidence. When would he learn that his safety wasn't just important to him, storming off like he was invincible?

Remy didn't realise he wasn't alone until he felt a sharp pain in the muscle of his upper left arm. In the security office, Blaze and Nightcrawler jumped to their feet, cursing. Gambit tried to squirm, to see who it was, but a low growl of a voice just behind him rooted his feet to the spot.

"Move, mutant, and I will inject you with a five millimetre dose of virus X. A lethal dose...."

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New York City had done what cities do best. In a time of crisis, with no alcohol on sale and no bars open anywhere in the city, its populace had either rooted themselves in front of the TV, or had taken to ransacking the streets in sheer frustration. The sight of the pillaging made Logan smile. Brought back memories. Almost.

"Logan," Cyclops' voice had that arrogant know it all tone to it, which meant Logan was not going to like what the guy had to say. "No looting."

"Aww," Wolverine complained sarcastically, "And I was gonna loot you something nice..." But Cyclops only smirked in reply, then turned to Storm.

"Where do you wanna go? Up high?"

"No, I was thinking more along the lines of a fog. If they cannot see, they cannot hurt themselves."

"The harbour it is then." Scott agreed, looking at the masses of violent people between them and the water and hoping they could manage it without too many almost-innocents getting sliced up in the process. "Just remember people..."

"Apocalypse rises!" A familiar male voice screamed on the wing, the figure of an angel swooping low above them.

"That's just what we need," Wolverine growled, "A flying fruitcake."

"Somebody shut him up." Cyclops groused, not wasting the effort himself. Warren Worthington was insane. The Professor had tried to help him, but whoever Apocalypse was, if he even existed, he'd seriously messed up the man's head.

"No problem." Jubilee offered, unusually quiet up until now. She raised her hands, blue energy running over her fingers, before pulsing upwards towards the winged man. Archangel flew straight into the blast, screaming in shock and pain before dropping to the floor. He landed uncomfortably on a car bonnet, but he was still breathing when Cyclops checked, so they left him there. They had bigger fish to fry that some made-up baddie called Apocalypse...

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On a park bench, Mercury waited. She waited for her breath to give up. It hurt to breathe, every breath gargled in her chest, making her want to cough and splutter. Sores all over her body made her shake with the pain. She was cold, achy, and drowning slowly in the fluid that built up, seeping in her own lungs. She was waiting to die.

Suddenly she was aware of the light getting darker around her. Was this it? Was this death? At what point had she given up her chance to a light at the end of the tunnel? Was there even such a thing? But a low pulsing voice, very male and very real, made her realise she was still hanging on. What he said shocked her into a more conscious state than she had managed for hours.

"Get up, mutant."

For a moment, she didn't even acknowledge him, or his four companions. It took all of her energy to work out that there were five of them. They blocked the sunshine from reaching her skin, unconsciously she was already sending out the tendrils of her forbidden power to try and protect herself. He spoke again.

"Get up, mutant."

"I can't." She spluttered, the effort making her cough and splutter again, holding her painful stomach and wince as though stabbed. The figures around her blurred. Were there still only five, or fifteen? Where was she?

"Get up, mutant." His voice was cold, his words neither kind nor considerate. But with some unforeseen power, his words alone dragged her to her feet. Without knowing how, Mercury was on her feet, shaking and dizzy, but standing. How was this possible? She was dying, wasn't she? Mercury snapped back to reality as the strange man spoke in a voice deeper than the ages.

"Come mutant, and serve the mighty Apocalypse!" The man raised a hand, and purple energy raced towards her. The minute the light hit, Eloise's eyes clouded over. She shuddered, muscles going into spasm, but found her feet working anyway. Part of her mind strove against it, screaming that she didn't want to go, but she had no choice. It seemed her body had a will of its own, to go on living it would even forge a truce with this stranger, this evil stranger who called himself Apocalypse...


	27. 27

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 27 

"I will kill you mutant, unless you tell me how many of you there are in my building?" The shadowy stranger hissed in Gambit's ear, clammy hand around the syringe, face invisible to the Cajun as he stood just behind Remy's shoulder. The prickling of the needle in Gambit's arm was distracting as he tried to talk himself out of this.

"There only me." Gambit lied; staring straight ahead and wondering of he could blow the needle and syringe out of his arm. Probably not, and he'd no guarantee none of the virus would get into his bloodstream if he did. "An' I don't know nothin' 'bout no virus. I'se just a t'ief."

"I know you're lying!" The shadow man growled, pulling in closer to the taller man. He grasped Gambit's arm just below where the needle was inserted, holding on hard to remind Remy he had Gambit's life in his hands. "I know..."

Suddenly a hand closed around the shadowy man's throat from behind, a red-hot hand that made him gasp and blister. A mutant! Another mutant had him!

"Let him go or I will kill you." Blaze's voice was bristly, furious. She meant every word of her order. "Now."

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#There's no mutant's making trouble, Professor. No sign of Magneto or his cronies. I think this virus might actually have scared them off. Storm's set in a low fog that seems to have clamed things down in the streets enough for the police to take control. We'll wait on a bit longer, just to make sure, but then we're coming home. #

#Very well, Cyclops. # Xavier concluded miles away in Cerebro. #We'll see you shortly. #

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"I... I... I'm sorry. You can't come in here... Wait! Stop!"

Hank McCoy, dressed smartly for all his blue fur and huge muscles, briefcase in hand, merely brushed aside the network TV station's security guard and strode forwards purposefully. He knew where he was going; he'd been here a thousand times.

"Good morning Pamela." He nodded cheerfully to an old acquaintance, actually mildly amused as she gawped at his strange appearance, trying to place his voice. "Tell me, which studio is Richard having us in today? And will the lovely Emma be attending to my make up as usual? Only I've been going through some changes..."

"Dr McCoy?" Pamela stuttered, speaking very slowly as though he might be deaf as well as blue. "Hank, is that you?"

"Well spotted," Hank voiced his approval. "Now, if you don't mind showing me to somewhere I can get a coffee and look over my notes briefly? It has occurred to me that I'm possibly giving your station a very good exclusive..."

"Hank, whatever you can tell us about the virus aside, you've already given us the exclusive of the year!" There wasn't a trace of fear or disgust in her voice, making Hank glow with pleasure. Maybe this would work out all right after all...

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Blaze felt the man in her grasp gulp, could almost taste the sudden swell of fear in him. She didn't let go. He knew she never would, not so long as he lived. She was a mutant, mutants were evil, mutants killed for pleasure, she'd never let him go.

He was going to die regardless. May as well take one more of them with him.

"No!" Blaze screamed, eyes wide in disbelief as he depressed the plunger, forcing the colourless liquid into Gambit's arm. Forcefully she flung the stranger away, sending him skidding to his hands and knees on the floor with the force of it. Gambit grabbed the syringe out of his own arm, looked at it, so small and so deathly empty in his large gloved hand. It took a few shallow breaths for the severity of it all to sink in. He was going to die.

"No!" Blaze grabbed hold of the back of the strange man's collar, heaved him to his feet again and launched him marching down the corridor. Gambit made to follow, too shocked to know what else to do. But Blaze was having none of it. Reaching an office she melted the lock, kicked the door open, all the while holding grimly onto the man's collar like a lioness to her kill. With a shudder the door flung open, then pounded shut again right in Gambit's face. Bobby and Kurt, watching it all through the CCTV, were quickly cut out as a fireball charred the office's camera.

"We must get down there!" Kurt demanded.

"Not yet." Bobby shook his head, turning back forcefully to the computer he was working on. "I'm real close to getting it all. Might be Gambit's only chance."

"But Blaze, she will kill that man..."

"Can you blame her?" Bobby answered coldly, blue eyes glinting with justified malice as he poured over the computer screen. "What have we got here then?"

"You have something?" Kurt asked, gulping down on his nerves and peering over Bobby's shoulder.

"I know who our soon-to-be barbequed friend is." Iceman flicked up a file containing staff profiles. "He owns the plant, John Jackson. And..." He paused for a moment, frowning.

"And what?" Kurt asked impatiently.

"And he's been making a lot of encrypted video-link calls via his office computer. Probably thinks they're as safe as they need to be..."

"But you can break the code?" Bobby nodded in reply, hands diving around the keyboard like his fingertips were possessed. The computer chirruped pleasantly, and Bobby breathed out a heavy sigh. "You have it?" Kurt asked. "You know was ist is that is happening here?"

"The calls are all to the same computer. I doubt even our shadowy friend down there knows who he's calling. This is one of the most secure links I've ever seen..."

"Why?" Kurt asked, awe in his voice. "Some sort of terrorist or criminal, nein?"

"No, just the White House..." Iceman tapped away again, eyes darting over the complicated assortment of pop-ups and windows on the screen. "Wanna pay a call?"


	28. 28

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 28 

Bleep, bleep. Bleep, bleep. Bleep, bleep.

"Excuse me." The woman in the smart suit excused herself from perusing a file with a member of staff as her computer alerted her to an incoming transmission. "That all looks fine. Put in the President's in-tray and start work on the staff rota."

The other woman nodded and left, dutifully closing the office door behind her. Marta sat down on her chair heavily, feet aching in shoes that pinched. Still, she was in a relatively good mood, one not dimmed when she opened the laptop to see John Jackson's ID on the call. What news of their pet mutant-extermination project did he have for her now?

"What can I do for you John?" She asked, deliberately sitting too far back for the camera to make out her features.

"I think you've just done all I need by answerin' my call..." The voice was a stranger, equally hidden from her as she was from him, but his voice sounded young and cold. Suddenly her screen burst into a flurry of activity, files opened and closed, transfer logos fought for her attention as data disappeared into the ether.

"Who is this? What are you doing? Where's John?" Panic seeped into Marta's voice, this was not good. Had they been too careless? The link to the whiskey distillery hadn't been a difficult one to make, but then she'd always intended for John to take the fall for her. But this was no policeman on the other end of the line; this was someone taking matters into their own hands...

"John's a little burnt out, you're talkin' to the Iceman." Bobby dropped in carelessly. "Thanks for your time, see you in Hell."

The link slammed shut abruptly, leaving Marta gasping for breath like a fish out of water. Mutants. Always mutants. Her brother had trusted them, and look what he'd got in return. A bullet through his head and his brains splattered on the deck of his yacht. Harder to kill than roaches, they came up through the woodwork the minute your back was turned and destroyed everything... And now she would have to run like some common criminal, or face the consequences of her actions trying to free the world...

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Gambit tried the door again, and it opened easily in his hand. His mind numb, he stepped across the threshold to be faced with a floor to ceiling wall of flame. Blaze was not going to let him see whatever she had in mind. Remy shuddered, wondering if it was the first effects of the virus running through his system, or a gut reaction to knowing he didn't want to see what Blaze was gonna do either. Turning his back on the flames he walked back into the corridor, head suddenly heavy, hand on the wall for security. Queasiness already washed at him, the strong direct dose speeding up his symptoms. Felt like he'd been swimming in the damn whiskey vats... He was going to die...

Behind the wall of fire, the man of shadows, John Jackson, cowered from this demon of a woman and the fire she created. He tried to splutter something, but his mind was numb and his blood was boiling. She beat him into the realm of coherent thought.

"You know that I am going to kill you now." Her voice was hot, humid, forcefully like the heat of the jungle. Like walking into a wall of heat. He cringed from it. "But not just yet. I need answers. I have to know all that you know about the virus and if there is any cure for my friend. How quickly you tell me those answers decides how quickly you die. Take too long, and you'll think you're slowly burning in Hell itself."

"You're going to torture me!" He screamed, shrinking away. Blaze looked at him, flames that surrounded them both making her eyes red and flickering. Emotionless.

"That is entirely up to you. Tell me everything, and I will kill you now."

"I wont tell you a thing! You've proved me right! Everything I knew about mutants being no better than murderous animals!"

If he'd expected to make Blaze angry with his insults, he failed. Very slowly, callously, she smiled at him.

"You've already killed two of my friends. Now you've condemned another to that same fate. This isn't murder, its vengeance." Blaze took a step closer, bent down to where he sat in a chair, sweating like a pig. She wasn't even warm, not sweating at all. "Now tell me everything, starting with whether you can take losing a hand or a foot to my flames first?"

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"Get out of here."

Blaze gave the order, but Bobby couldn't find it in him to steal the authority back. She barged into the security room covered in a fine back ash that Kurt had no desire to know where it had come from, but his nose was giving him a very good idea. Like one of Logan's barbeques, the smell of charred meat hung in the air. Gambit's arm was slung about Blaze's shoulder, the Cajun barely on his feet as his slight friend braced herself to take the weight of his six-foot-something muscular frame. Iceman relieved her of that duty, Kurt taking Gambit's other arm and between them they kept him stood up.

"Where are you going?" Bobby asked as Blaze turned her back on all of them and walked back out the door.

"Get the security guard out of the cupboard on your way through. Ditch him; get the jet and move clear. When I'm done, I'll find you." She didn't turn round once, storming down a corridor with her boot heels clicking.

"What are you gonna do?" Bobby called after her. In silent response, Blaze's fist snapped out and smashed a tiny pane of glass. All around them, fire alarms rattled the building, proclaiming Armageddon.

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The X-Jet hovered black in the sky, its occupants watching silently as below them the sprawling complex of the distillery was devoured by flames so bright they made the setting sun appear dull and lifeless. Hungry, the fire devoured building after building, reaching the vats as Blaze did. It dived when she commanded it, drove into the rich alcohol and knew what it had to do. The distillery exploded, the redhead at its centre an immoveable object, sheltered and protected by her fire. The jet rocked in the air with the force of it.

Gambit barely noticed. Everything was rocking anyway and he had no sense of temperature anymore. He winced and screwed up his face as tears made his vision swim. He was going to die...


	29. 29

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 29 

"Hank on yet?" Scott asked Vixen as he walked in on her watching the news on the edge of her seat.

"On next." She answered shortly. "Mission go okay, One Eye?"

"Yeah." Scott perched on her chair's arm, "You'll be pleased to know Logan behaved himself." If he expected her to laugh at that, both of them would have been surprised, but it mattered little anyway as the newsreader began talking about Hank McCoy's expertise in science and on mutation. "They're talking him up first? They think he's as big a story as the virus, don't they?"

"Something like that." Vixen answered, turning up the volume on the TV as finally the camera panned round to where Beast was sat waiting. The chair looked too small for him, a sweeping, high-armed number in the exactly wrong shade of red to make his blue fur seem less shocking. Ilehana was silently horrified at how hard they'd tried to make Beast seem hideous. And was that gel in his hair?

"Now, Dr McCoy, before we get round to the mutant virus debate, perhaps you could explain to us what has happened to you since your last visit to the studio?" The anchorman smarmed, smiling at some hidden joke. But Hank took it well, knowing he may be blue and furry, but he still had the intelligence to pull the wool over this fool's eyes.

"Of course. For those of you sitting at home wondering if I've maybe gotten a new suit or a different haircut, well done, you are exactly right. What do you think?" He smiled appeasingly, enjoying these games.

"That's sure swell Hank." The newsreader continued. "But I think we were alluding to a more dramatic change in appearance..."

"Well I have been working out..." Hank joked. The newsreader looked like he would burst if Beast didn't just spell it out soon. Ah well, to put a man out of his misery. "Yes, I am a mutant. It is no sudden change either, despite appearances. I have been suppressing my mutation for a number of years..."

"Then a mutation is an optional thing? It can be switched off?" The newsreader was keen to ask.

"A good question, given my own story. But no, the mutation is as much part of a mutant as, say, eye or hair colour, or a passion for art or music. But mutations can, with time and training, and speaking generally, be controlled or even suppressed. I however stand as proof that suppressing a mutation is not a healthy way forward." Hank sat back in his seat, knowing this was going well but doubting anyone was actually listening to what he had to say.

"And the..." The TV pundit continued, but Scott and Ilehana both were swamped instead with a telepathic message. #To the hanger, we have an emergency. # Xavier didn't try and explain, trusting his daughter and his foster son not to argue with him. Of course, they didn't.

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"Help us..."

The gangway of the jet dropped open like the maw of some deepwater fish. Ilehana and Cyclops, with the Professor, were waiting. Blaze and Gambit hung there suspended, his arm around her shoulder in what looked like a friendly embrace. Until Cyclops saw Gambit's face. The Cajun, pale and sweating, was visibly woozy. Just like Colossus had been when they'd come home that night, but this time everybody knew what was wrong. Gambit had the virus; he was going to die.

"Help us..." Blaze pleaded, taking more of Remy's weight across her shoulders than she was comfortably able to bear. The Professor watched, rife with concern as Cyclops and Vixen helped detach the redhead and sweep the Cajun onto a trolley bed. Bobby and Kurt appeared in the maw as Cyclops pushed the stretcher towards the door, leaving with Blaze and Ilehana.

"How did it happen?" Xavier demanded softly. "How is this possible?" The thought of losing another of his X-Men was too much. It didn't help that neither Iceman nor Nightcrawler had any answer to give...

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"I've given you painkillers and strong antibiotics Remy. With any luck we've caught it in time..." Ilehana tried to remain hopeful, but it was a forced, desperate hope when she had nothing but hope to offer. It wasn't even as if the ex-thief was listening to her. Remy's unique eyes glazed over, all he could taste was bile. So this was what it felt like to be dying?

"This ain't so bad..." He tried to find some dark humour, but only succeeded in making himself cough and splutter.

"Don't speak." Blaze told him, not quite forcefully. "You have to save your strength."

"For what?" Remy asked pointedly, red-on-black eyes swinging back into focus sharply. But another coughing fit took him before Blaze could answer. She helped him roll onto his side, smoothed his hair as the coughs subsided.

#Blaze? # Vixen called telepathically, #Come away, I need to talk to you, and he needs to rest. #

"Rest." Blaze ordered, pulling a blanket up and over Remy's shoulders. This time he didn't argue, closing his eyes and concentrating on breathing. She left him, walking across the infirmary to where Vixen was waiting. "What is it?" Blaze asked Vixen reluctantly. With everything that she was, Laura was fighting to deny the truth, to ignore the reality that Gambit may die as if that alone could stop it. But it wasn't that Vixen wanted to talk to her about.

"You know how Colossus caught the virus." Fact, not question, Ilehana's cool blue eyes practical. Blaze nodded slowly, unnecessarily. "No matter what, you must not kiss Gambit." Blaze just looked at Ilehana. Nothing was sinking in, and Ilehana couldn't blame her, it was all a bit much for the metamorph as well. "Look, Blaze, I'm going to sedate him as well, to give the drugs a chance to work. He'll be pretty out of it. Do you mind sitting with him, keeping an eye on him? I'll understand if you don't..."

"If I..." Blaze shook her head, curls dancing, eyes dilated. "Of course I'll stay, if you told me to leave I wouldn't. Why would I not want to?"

"All right." Ilehana conceded, not answering Blaze's question, trying not to think about the damage to might do to Blaze's already fragile emotional health to watch her best friend die. "I've got work to do, a lot of work, but if you need me, just call."

"Sure." Blaze blinked slowly at Vixen. All Laura's anger, her terror, her emotions were drained away now as the colour of her face. Her empty eyes followed Ilehana as the doctor walked to Gambit's bedside to administer the sedatives. And then it finally hit her. Remy was going to die.

She choked on a sob. She blinked away tears frantically. And then, just like that, she pushed it all aside. No time to feel now, it wasn't over yet, and he needed her...


	30. 30

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 30 

"Remy..." Blaze was at his side before he'd realised she'd been gone, taking his hand in hers. She didn't wince or pull away as briefly he charged her palm with his mutant power, just to convince himself he wasn't alone. Her hand throbbed as he held it, the fingers of Blaze's other hand stroking his hair back from his brow. His eyes slowly closed as he put all his effort into drawing his power back. It took more effort than he was comfortable with, dropping Blaze's hand in sudden awareness that he may just have nearly blown it off.

"Blaze, I..." She put a warm finger to his lips, quieting him just before he began to cough again. Unwittingly, Blaze turned her face away; trying to hide the swell of fear she was now losing the fight against. Gambit didn't notice, numbness from the drugs he had been given drifting like deep winter snowfall, collecting in his limbs in drifts. His arms and legs felt heavy, leaden, his mind was becoming numb. Sleep may take him any moment, and he couldn't be sure he'd ever wake again. As if reading his mind, a skill she had once been capable of but had long now been gone, Blaze put a hand to his shoulder and whispered to him. "Sleep, Remy. I'm right here, I'll watch over you."

"No..." He spluttered, trying to roll onto his back to get a better look at her. "I ain't sleepin'. I sleep when I'm dead."

"Stop it." Blaze demanded as gently as she could, heart swollen and sore to hear him speak like that. "You're not going to die, you just have to rest to get better..." All through her speaking to him, she stroked his hair with her fingers as comfortingly as she could be. Like a mother with a sick kid, Gambit thought randomly, though he couldn't imagine Blaze with a child. His head swam, his skin tugging at him across his broad shoulders as if suddenly it was too small. So, lesions already... But he couldn't place their significance any more, swamped with numbness of body and mind. "Just rest Rem..." Blaze continued to soothe, and he felt himself giving in to her order.

"No." Stubborn as ever, he forced opened his eyes, daring himself to fight the sedative. "Too much to say, too much to tell you..."

"Tell me when you're better." Blaze whispered, knowing tears were seconds from flooding down her face but fighting them as much as she fought to keep her hand and voice steady.

"I ain't gettin' better." He pointed out, and then as if to emphasise his point fell into the heaviest bout of coughing he'd had so far. "Laura..." He gasped between coughs, tasting blood on his tongue and hating that he couldn't think straight. "I have to..."

"Stop it," Blaze took hold of his hand again, squeezed it hard, not caring that he might blow it up. Gambit didn't think that he had the strength to blow anything up right then, breath short and shallow, lesions ripping his skin. "Stop trying to say goodbye. Its not over..."

"It is... For me..." Gambit's voice was hoarse, crippled by the restrictions the lesions on his lungs were causing to his breathing. He was suddenly very grateful for Ilehana's dose of painkillers. Remy could imagine now how much pain Colossus had been in before he was found... "Nothin' for it Petite... I'se just wish..."

"Wish what?" Blaze could barely ask as another cough subsided, tears in free flow now and heart bleeding.

"That I done a better job of lookin' after you..." Remy whispered, and though his eyes were closed, his fingers stroked the scars on Blaze's left forearm. Wordlessly Blaze shook her head, fighting the temptation to pull away from his touch, a touch that knew too much about her. "I'se sorry... I let you down Blaze..."

"No." Blaze told him forcefully, not believing that he could even think that. "No, Remy, you're wrong. You're wrong..." Laura choked on a sob, desperate to make him understand. If this really was it, he had to know the truth... "Its me who should be saying sorry, and I am, Rem. So sorry... For pushing you away when you were only trying to help, for not seeing that you were here for me, trying to help me..."

"How come I'se not allowed to say goodbye, but you is..." Gambit's voice was little more than a whisper in the darkness of the moment; his eyes kept closing unbidden, breath almost empty and gone.

"I'm not saying goodbye." Blaze put as much truth in that statement as she could, hoping he couldn't tell she was lying. "I wont. It's not over. I'm just saying sorry, and I should have said it much earlier than this."

"Laura, ain't nothin' to say sorry 'bout..." Gambit countered her, his whole world numb, his mind scrambled. He didn't even know if she was still stood there, couldn't sense anything anymore. His treacherous mouth babbled on, and all the while some part of him despaired that he couldn't stop himself from baring his soul. "Nothin', nothin'..." Blaze watched, knowing Gambit was slipping out of it, just like Ilehana had predicted, and sudden realised what her friend had been asking if she was prepared to see. "If you knew anythin'... If you knew what you meant..." He coughed again, a weak cough like a newborn kitten struggling with its first breath. "What you mean to me..."

"Don't!" Blaze sobbed, not knowing whether to embrace him or turn and walk away. She turned to the door, pulling back on her tears, fighting her firepower. But she couldn't leave; an invisible rope tugged her right back to his side, to hold him like she'd once held their daughter. "Don't give up like this! You're the strong one, Remy, you can fight it!" Sobs cut through her, tremors of dread not far removed from the coughs that creased his face with discomfort. "After everything..."

"After everything, I'se let you down again. I can't fight this." If she hadn't been holding him, Blaze would not have heard his words, they were so quiet, cost him so much energy he didn't have to spare.

"Yes you can." Blaze clung to the hope, faint though it was like the scent of jasmine on a winter gale. She had never felt so cold. "Yes you can Remy, you have to. I can't do this without you... You're the only person that has ever made me feel safe. You make me feel safe, Remy, you make me feel safe..." Her fear and dread destroyed her, but at least she'd made him understand... Slowly, Gambit nodded at her, unable to speak any more. And then Blaze realised what she'd done. She'd said goodbye. Now he'd no reason to hang on...

"Laura..." He breathed, and she knew what he wanted. One last goodbye, to let him relax and slip away from her. And it was the one thing she couldn't give him; tears sliding like glaciers over her soft skin, lips pale and taunt, and eyes bloodshot and aching. She held him to her, his weight and warmth a comfort; she kissed his brow but shied away from anything more. Why? Why carry on without him? How easy would it be to kiss his lips, just one last time, to give him what he wanted? He wouldn't know it would kill her, a kiss of death, and a kiss of escape...

Jessica. In the last second before Laura's lips touched Remy's in that bitter sweet moment, she remembered the one reason why she had to keep going, keep fighting, keep trying. With a sob that would break even the stoniest heart, she pulled away, shaking her head, hating herself. Remy knew then what he'd almost done, it shook him like one more of the ever present wracking coughs that he had even got close, close to passing on this cursed virus, to killing his best friend...

"Sleep." She told him, mouth barely forming the word. "Sleep. I'm right here. Its my turn to keep you safe..."


	31. 31

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 31 

Panic was stalking her, right behind her with every new trick she tried. Every time the chromatography came back blank, every time the centrifuge finished spinning to yield nothing new, panic edged that little bit closer. The emotions Vixen felt from the other side of the infirmary weren't helping. No matter how forcefully she defended her telepathic walls, the torrent of feelings from Blaze and Gambit were an overwhelming siege. Quick as she pushed them away, their emotions swamped her again, dragging the panic closer with every swell of the tide.

She could not find a cure. She did not believe she had ever stood a chance of finding it. Maybe a large, experienced team of pharmacologists and biochemists, in a big well-funded lab with oodles of time could perhaps one day find something that would kill the virus without harming its victim. But Ilehana was not doctor enough to find the miracle that would cure her friend. Gambit was going to die, and Ilehana could do nothing to stop it.

In a wave of dread, she swept all of her pointless research into a large waste bin, notes, test tubes, samples and analysis. The only thing left standing on the work surface was the bottle of virus-containing whiskey. Three quarters empty now, and no way of obtaining more when it had gone, not with the distillery destroyed. Panic gave way to depression, despair, and as Blaze pulled away broken-heartedly from Remy's goodbye kiss, Ilehana left the infirmary knowing there was literally nothing left to do but wait.

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Not minutes later, Wolverine arrived to offer his support, his help, or himself as a punch-bag depending on what Ilehana was up to. The infirmary was quiet, even the incessant machines seemed to be sedated. Gambit seemed to be sleeping, and that had to be good news, right? Blaze was sat on a chair by his bedside, arms lodged against the edge of the bed, face hidden. Logan couldn't tell if she was awake or not, decided with little thought to leave her be. Ilehana was nowhere to be seen.

Damn her, Logan swore, at the same time meaning and not meaning the words. Damn her for cuttin' him out, again. What was it with the women in this place havin' to have everythin' their own way? He'd hardly seen her in days, and every time he tried to help, she was off doing something else already. Or just plain avoiding him. Treacherously his eyes fell on the lone bottle of whiskey. Odd place for a whiskey bottle, on a worktop in a lab... Still Logan supposed if there was one way to get Gambit to take his medicine...

Or maybe it was Ilehana's? He knew she'd been under a lot of stress lately, the mansion's doctor dealing first with Colossus' death, then testing all the staff and kids. Her dad being ill had been damn hard on all of them, but none more than Ilehana, no matter how she tried to hide it. The X-Men were no strangers to alcohol, Blaze no longer drank because of the damage she'd once done to her liver, Cyclops had turned to the bottle when Jean was taken, it wasn't a great leap for Logan to make to see how Ilehana might be tempted.

He lifted the glass bottle off the counter casually, admiring how much was gone. He knew Ilehana could drink, but were things really that hopeless? The liquid told him that it was, glinting sorrowfully, already mourning the second X-Man to fall to the virus. Logan swiped the bottle top with his palm, sending it spinning across the counter in a deft and practiced movement. Here's to ya, Remy, he saluted his dying friend, and took a more than healthy swig.

"Logan!" Vixen didn't mean to disturb Gambit or Blaze, but she hardly had time to think. Her predatory blue eyes only saw Wolverine as he swallowed the contaminated alcohol, Blaze's eyes wide and disbelieving just behind him as the redhead lurched stubbornly to her feet. Guiltily, Wolverine wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. What was she so aggressive about? It was just a mouthful of whiskey for cryin' out loud, why was Ilehana so defensive?

"Logan you idiot! What have you done?" Ilehana yelled at him without regret, cursing his stupidity and her own for not removing the temptation. Is this what the X-Men were being reduced to, a bunch of faltering alcoholics? "That whiskey is carrying the virus! You've just infected yourself!"

The bottle slipped from Wolverine's grasp as he just stared at the X-Men's doctor. It hit the floor and shattered, glass and liquid splattering in every which direction. Gambit groaned but otherwise hardly reacted, Blaze's eyes flicking from her best friend to Ilehana and back to Logan, not wanting to believe what she had just heard. Logan was to die as well?

"Wait." Logan raised a hand cautiously, palm outwards as he tried to make sense of the whole thing. "You're tellin' me I'm infected? I've got the same virus Gumbo has?"

"Yes!" Ilehana nearly screamed at him, "How could you be so stupid, Logan! How could you?" The Vixen would never cry, never willingly betray a weakness, but she could hardly deny the tumult inside her. To lose Colossus was a tragedy, to lose her very good friend Gambit soul-destroying, but to lose Logan to the same demon she could not stop? "How could you?" She demanded again, writhing against his embrace as he tried to comfort her.

"Babe, I'm sorry, I didn't know..." Wolverine couldn't explain why he wasn't worried, just the same as he couldn't understand why Ilehana was so afraid. "Ilehana, look at me..." Vixen did as she was told, appreciating that Blaze was being tactful and looking the other way. His brown eyes held her more strongly than any embrace ever could. "I don't get sick, babe. You just gotta remember that..."

"Shit!" Vixen swore, pushing him away forcefully and diving for an unlabelled draw. "Logan, you're absolutely right! Why didn't I think of that?" She turned back to him armed with a syringe and a needle that must have been ten centimetres long. Had Ilehana gone mad?

"Vix, what are you doing?" Blaze asked, leaving Gambit's bedside barely to place a hand on Ilehana's shoulder. She didn't particularly want to witness Ilehana stabbing Logan to death with a medical appliance if she didn't have to...

"His immune system," Ilehana turned to the redhead, blue eyes enthused and incredibly relieved. It was the last emotion Blaze had been expecting, stopping the fire elemental dead in her tracks. What was Vixen on about? "He can fight the virus! His lymphocytes, his mutated white blood cells, they will fight the virus now it's in him and from them I can manufacture a cure! Blaze if we're quick, we can still save Gambit!"

As if to emphasise the need for speed, in the bed behind them Gambit groaned again, but weakly. He was shivering, but Blaze had the cure for that at least, warming the silver blanket that covered him as she straightened it around him. Could it be true? Could they still save him?

"Then what we waitin' for?" Logan demanded, taking the syringe from Ilehana and jamming it into his own vein, grimacing as he took a sample of his own blood. Vixen took it from him eagerly, starting up the centrifuge one last time with more vigour than she'd managed in days. It wasn't over, and thanks to Logan, it didn't have to be any more of a tragedy...


	32. 32

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.

Scene 32 Day 07, Sunday......... 

"Qu'est-ce qui?"

"Good question." Blaze answered Remy with a warm and very relieved smile. "I have no idea what happened..." And neither did it matter, not to her, not now she was safe in the knowledge he wasn't about to leave her just yet...

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"So how did the debate finish, Hank? Seemed to me you were whipping that presenter's backside before we had to leave you to it?" Scott asked as casually as he could. On the other end of the line as they both waited for the Professor to come take Hank's call, Beast could only smile.

"I think the phrase is that I took him to the cleaners, Cyclops." Beast had never sounded smugger. "I'm booked to come talk again next week, not to mention the other networks, and several prominent universities..."

"So I guess you'll be too busy to come back and visit any time soon?" Cyclops dug shamelessly, knowing Beast knew what he was talking about.

"I'm afraid I wont be able to make it to Colossus' funeral, no. I'm sorry Scott, but the public needs to know what I can tell them, especially now a cure has been isolated..."

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Bobby flicked channels on the TV professionally, soaking up the news and the glory like a sponge in melt water.

"The President's assistant, Marta Marshall, wife of businessman Harold Marshall, has been arrested today whilst attempting to board a private jet to the Caribbean...."

"Evidence has come to light from an unnamed source that pinpoints the President's aide as to being in control of the viral terrorist threat again the mutant population. Whilst her motives are still unclear, her arrest has sparked a wave of..."

"The body is presumed to be that of Mr Jackson, found at the seat of the blaze at the distillery yesterday evening..."

"Several unmarked graves at the distillery have been exhumed this morning, presumably containing mutant test subjects for the horrific viral project..."

Bobby sat back in his seat, dumping the remote on the cushion. He could take the credit for the links between the viral terrorists and the White House, but the police had done the rest to actually catch the one responsible. As for the unmarked graves, containing the bodies of mutant street kids who'd never had the protection that the Xavier School was all about? Well he couldn't take the credit for that either. Nobody had cared enough about those kids to record their final resting places in a computer file. But Blaze had cared, had got all the information from Jackson before she had killed him, and so gotten revenge for the children the X-Men had failed to protect.

Once the investigations were completed, the Professor and Blaze had already laid claim to any of the dead children whose relatives could not be traced. Not one of the X-Men could explain why Blaze of all of them was so adamant that their bodies were protected in death, as they had not been in life, but none could fault her for it.

"In related news," The TV anchorman continued, "The President has turned to Senator Hawley, known for his pro-mutant stance, to aide him in what has been dubbed the 'viral clean-up operation'. Hawley's aide, Matthew Cooper, had this to say earlier..."

Bobby sat up a little straighter and hit the volume button as the shot cut to Matthew, stood in a crowd of frantic journalists, looking like he belonged there, as if he was in his element. The crowd were captivate, and for a second Bobby could perfectly understand why friends like this were exactly the type of people the X-Men needed to cultivate, if they were to peacefully change the world for the better...

"We have to remember," Matthew started more confidently than he felt, but knowing the moment was his to take. Let Blaze keep her life as an X-Man, he belonged here, in the political circus, making a difference in the way he knew best... "Not one of us is invincible. No one can predict the future; know who is going to be a mutant and who is not. At birth we are all the same. It's what we do after that that makes us who we are. Mutant or human, it's what we do with our life that counts in the end. What these terrorists have done will count against them; but in sending them to justice, we cannot forget the precious lives that they have already destroyed..."

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Finally, Jubilee got to share her grief. Got to see it reciprocated in the hearts and faces of her colleagues. Havoc and his friend Sian had joined them, dressed in matching black, their dismay tangible and their support for all the X-Men unwavering. More than that, the summer's graveyard was packed with mutant children. They had swarmed here in their droves to send off their much beloved tutor, their fellow student of the Xavier School, their hero and their friend. Colossus.

There were a few faces missing that Jubilee would have taken comfort from seeing there. She missed Kitty and Rogue, and even Pyro, with an ache of good times long gone. How scattered now were her former classmates? Only she and Bobby were left that called the Xavier School home... Beast had not made it today either, and neither had Matthew, but she could not fault either of them for the hauntingly beautiful flower arrangements they had sent. They sat in pride of place alongside the rest, colour strong in the bright summer sunshine.

Gambit was not well enough to leave the infirmary, let alone come to the funeral. Blaze had opted to stay with him, more out of disbelief that her friend was going to be okay than any other conscious thought. Jubilee had found it strange at first, but she couldn't hate Gambit or Logan for surviving the disaster that had claimed her former classmate. What type of person would that make her for holding their good fortune or their mutation against them? She'd been to see Gambit just before she had left for the graveyard, though it had taken all of her courage to do so. The sight of him sat up in bed, taking Blaze's clumsy nursing with good humour, had been a poultice to Jubilee's hurt. Now at last it really was all over. And it was that relief that helped her more than anything.

As a songbird filled the air with a sombre yet beautiful melody that could have well been compose in Heaven, the minister concluded his graveside rites with holy passion. The sermon had been lovely; there was not an unmoved soul amongst them. From the youngest child to Xavier himself, they felt keenly Peter's loss. But just had Nightcrawler had suggested they would, they also celebrated his life. A life of comic artwork that had always made those he shared it with smile. A life of bravery, no matter the circumstances, and of self-sacrifice for others. Surprisingly, it was Cyclops who summed it up succinctly, making Jubilation smile proudly through her reams of thick tears.

"Goodbye Peter. You were what being an X-Man is all about..."


	33. 33

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.

**A/N:** Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars. I don't like to finish stories on depressing notes, so here's a nice cheery end to 'All or Nothing'. Thank you all again for your support

Epilogue 

Three weeks later:

Again, the day was sunny. The sky was clear and blue, an endless roof of light and warmth over Westchester, so huge that just looking at it made Blaze feel a little dizzy. Not that at the minute staring aimlessly at the sky was high on her list of priorities...

She was on the basketball court, dressed in trainers, soft pink strappy vest and ludicrously short torn-off jeans. And she faced Logan down with a grin, diving in as he bounced the basketball to successfully steal it, twist round him and shoot for the hoop. The ball rattled around the rim for a second, before falling back the wrong way. Laughing, Logan stole the ball back and forced Blaze to go on the defensive, putting herself between him and the target.

"Obstruction, Blaze." The redhead stared in consternation at the referee, Gambit sat on the edge of the court in a wheelchair that was slowly driving him insane. He could walk, that wasn't a problem, but he was often short of breath if he over-exerted himself. Still, him being ill didn't mean Blaze would let him get away with dodgy refereeing.

"Obstruction?" She protested, hands re-tying her hair into a scruffy knot at the base of her neck. "Gambit, I'm about half the size of him! How is it possible for me to obstruct him?"

"Non-contact sport Petite..." Gambit pointed out with a glint in his eye. Basketball was hardly Blaze's thing anyway, nearly as bad as soccer wasn't his.

"This game is worse than netball, and that's saying something." Blaze moaned, dropping her arms and walking back towards Gambit. "I give up."

"What, I win again?" Logan grinned, cracking his knuckles on the ball annoyingly.

"Not so fast, Logan." Gambit cautioned, red-on-black eyes twinkling at some great hidden joke. "I'se take you on..." And he got up, tugging straight his grey basketball vest over dark blue jogging pants. He certainly looked like he meant what he said as Logan and Blaze just stared at him, slack-jawed and not understanding. "What?" Gambit teased, striding forward purposefully as if he'd never been ill in his life. "Vixen gave Gambit the all-clear two day ago, mes Amies. I'se just takin' it easy, non?"

"Taking it easy?" Wolverine stuttered, trust the Cajun to play them all for fools ...

"You..." Blaze started, lunging forward as Logan frantically caught her arm and slapped a hand over her mouth to cover her obscenity. Last thing they needed was Blaze putting Gambit right back in the infirmary again, no matter how much Logan thought he deserved it. Still, at least finally Blaze's arms were healed... Carefully Logan moved his hand, and Blaze continued her tirade as though he'd never stopped her. "You've just been winding us up, making us run after you!"

"Easy Firefly..." Logan tried to calm her down, but she wriggled and scorched the Wolverine, making him gasp. Flinging herself at Gambit, she locked her arms around his neck, the force of the redheaded fireball hitting him making him stagger back slightly before he could return the hug. Smiling he let Blaze hide her tears of relief from the two men, burying her face in his chest. Not letting on that he knew she was crying, Gambit's hand stroked her spine tenderly. Finally, things could get back to normal around here...

"You heard the homme, little one." The Cajun spoke evenly, at ease with his emotions. "Don't go squeezin' too hard... So what you say Logan, t'ink you can beat me yet?" At his challenge Blaze unwrapped herself and trotted off to the sidelines, sniffing once, and getting well out of the way. She knew how competitive her two friends could be.

"You're kiddin' right Gumbo?" Logan bounced the ball to Gambit, who caught it casually and span it on one index finger, showing off. "You know I'm gonna have to go easy on you, or Ilehana'll skin me alive..."

"Again..." Blaze piped up cheekily from where she had sat sprawled in the sunshine, examining her nails rather than meet Wolverine's sceptical glance.

"Still, what she don't know..." Logan finished, eyes dangerous as Gambit grinned lopsidedly. "You ready to lose Cajun?"

"Whenever you ready, Logan. There a first time for everythin', non?"

"Huh." Logan snorted, "Well here goes nothin'..."


End file.
